Mahaney Diamond was quiet Monday as the University of Maine baseball team took its mandatory NCAA day off while players began final exam week.

Coach Steve Trimper’s Black Bears needed a break from baseball after losing three of four games in their America East series against Albany.

The Bears (27-16-1, 8-6 AE), who have dropped five of their last six games, may benefit from four consecutive days of evening practices without any games to worry about.

“We just need to clear our heads and get back to the drawing board,” senior captain Joe Hough said.

UMaine (.571) remains in second place in the league standings, but trails first-place Vermont (11-5, .688) by a considerable margin in the quest to earn the right to host the conference tournament May 25-27.

Trimper said the struggles against Albany stemmed from UMaine’s youth and the tendency of players to put too much pressure on themselves, especially at the plate.

The Bears have three freshman positional starters in third baseman Kevin McAvoy of Brewer, second baseman Danny Menendez and catcher Sean Parker. First-year pitchers Mike Powers of Portland and Jose Mendoza also made starts against the Great Danes, while frosh reliever A.J. Balsinde pitched well in two games.

“These guys are a hardworking bunch but you’re dealing with a lot of young individuals here,” Trimper said. “Whether we’ve won or lost, our youthfulness comes out sometimes.”

A combination of costly errors and unspectacular pitching led to a pair of two-out, four-run rallies that enabled Albany to steal two winnable games.

“Take those innings away and give [Albany] back two runs or one run and we’re winning games,” said Trimper, who hopes the Bears can shore up their defense.

“Our job as a coaching staff is to try to build off this,” Trimper said. “You certainly don’t want to lose, you don’t want to play bad, but we played poorly and we’ve got to play clean.”

While UMaine’s prospects of hosting the tournament have been diminished, Trimper won’t let his players to panic. They have two weeks, and nine games, to improve.

“You always have goals and expectations but, the bottom line is, we don’t care if we’re playing on the moon,” Trimper said. “We want to get [to the tournament] and we want to win three games.”

UMaine will try to regroup during a four-game home series against Hartford that starts Saturday. Junior captain Joel Barrett of Brewer knows this is a key stretch for the Bears.

“I think it’s definitely going to be hard to come back after this one, but we’ve got a week to practice, a week to laugh it off and have fun again,” Barrett said. “We just have to go out and play the game we love; not stress.”