Bears more competitive this year

Paul Kostacopoulos and his University of Maine baseball team have discovered something virtually unheard of on recent spring trips: the .500 mark.

Kostacopoulos went 5-11 on last year’s spring trip in his first season and the Bears are already 5-5 thanks to their current four-game winning streak.

Maine had gone 2-56 on the three previous spring trips but those schedules were laden with Top 25 teams.

“We’ve made an adjustment in the schedule,” acknowledged Kostacopoulos. “We’ve been playing teams we can compete against. The kids aren’t down about themselves. They have an inner smile. When you come home hitting .310 instead of .190, you have a different outlook on yourself.”

The Maine coach said he will be able to accurately evaluate his team over the final four games of the trip against Ball State (Ind.) today and nationally-ranked Clemson University Tigers (3 games) over the weekend.

Clemson, 16-2, began the week fifth in one national poll and 12th in another.

“We’ll learn from these games. They’ll help us be competitive in the [American East] league,” said Kostacopoulos.

Offensively, the Bears are hitting .308 behind third baseman Brian Poire’s .436 average; right fielder Ron Coombs’ .419 mark; center fielder T.J. Sheedy’s .405 average and catcher-DH Kregg Jarvais’ .342 mark.

Lead-off man Poire, who transferred to Maine when New Hampshire dropped baseball, leads the team in RBIs (16) and runs (16). Coombs and Jarvais have 10 RBIs each.

“Brian has done a very good job in the lead-off spot,” said Kostacopoulos. “He’s been our most consistent player. He has kept this team going.”

Kostacopoulos said Coombs “amazes me.

“He competes more than 90 percent of the kids I have,” said Kostacopoulos. “He doesn’t have the best arm and he isn’t the greatest hitter in the world but he gets the job done. And he holds up the middle of the order [in the three spot].”

One of the highlights has been Maine’s rally from an 11-1 deficit to beat Monmouth (N.J.) 15-11 on Sunday.

“I can’t ever remember coaching a game when one of my teams was down by 10 runs in the fifth inning and came back to win. And that’s 350-400 games,” said Kostacopoulos.

Kostacopoulos said his young pitching staff “needs to mature.

“They may need a half a year before they start getting the concepts. They don’t change speeds well,” said Kostacopoulos, who is less than enamored with his staff’s 68-51 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 6.96 earned run average.

Junior Tom Koutrouba (1-1, 7.96), UNH transfer Eric O’Brien (1-0, 10.00) and freshman Jason Hall (0-2, 14.29) make up the starting rotation along with either freshman lefty Tom Morelli (1-0, 4.82) or newcomer Jim Bailin (0-1, 4.37). Brian Pugh (0.00 ERA), Jon Dickinson (1-0, 2.47), Rob Worcester (2.86) and Rick Hewey (1-1, 3.98) have given Maine good relief innings.

Defensively, Kostacopoulos said moving Sheedy from third base back to his natural center field position has significantly improved the outfield.

He has been pleased by the infield’s 16 double plays but said they still “bobble some balls that I would hope they would stop bobbling by the end of the spring trip.”

Maine has made 18 errors.