University of Maine baseball coach Paul Kostacopoulos isn’t going to lose any sleep over the rain falling as he prepares his team for the America East Tournament beginning Thursday at Mahaney Diamond in Orono.

Top seed Northeastern (28-18 overall, 14-6 in America East) will open the tourney against No. 4 Stony Brook (26-25, 11-10) at 3:30 p.m. with No. 2 Maine (32-19, 14-7) facing No. 3 Albany (36-12, 14-7) at 7 p.m.

The losers will play at noon Friday, the winners go at 3:30 p.m., and the survivors with one loss will meet at 7 p.m.

The championship round will begin at noon Saturday.

“I learned long ago not to be concerned about the weather. I coached at Providence College before I came here and Rhode Island is the rainiest state in the country. We used to call it Rain Island,” joked Kostacopoulos. “There’s not much you can do about it. You have to take each day as it goes.”

He added that practices are basically review sessions at this point of the season and the teams are already familiar with each other.

“We’ve played so many games, a lot of these situations have taken care of themselves,” said Kostacopoulos.

“I’d love to be outside the next two days, but if that doesn’t happen, we’ll still be ready,” said Kostacopoulos, whose Bears will bring a six-game winning streak into the tourney. “We’re pitching well, we’re hitting, and we’re playing [good] defense. We’re where we want to be.”

As for evaluating the tourney, he said, “Albany has the best offensive power and potential to score. They’ve got some power and some guys who can run. If they get multi[ple] runners on base, they can do a lot of things.

“Northeastern has the strongest pitching, with asterisks. Their starters [Jordan Thomson, Justin Hedrick and Devin Monds] are as good as anybody’s, but I’m not sure about their depth.”

“We’ve got the best bullpen with [Greg] Norton, [Ryan] Harris, and [Scott] Robinson,” said Kostacopoulos. “Stony Brook’s number one [righty Jon Lewis] is very good, they hit 50 home runs, and they play with a lot of energy. They come to the park ready to go.”

Kostacopoulos said each team has a dominant No. 1 pitcher and they all play good defense.

Northeastern is the defending America East tourney champ, beating Stony Brook 11-0 in the final.

Albany has the highest team batting average at .310 followed by Maine (.306), Stony Brook (.264), and Northeastern (.262).

Northeastern has the best ERA at 3.40 followed by Maine (3.73), Albany (4.47), and Stony Brook (4.56).

Kostacopoulos said he hopes the Bears can attract large crowds to intensify the home-field advantage.

“College kids play with emotion. Hopefully, there will be a lot of people in the stadium,” said the 39-year-old Kostacopoulos. “When you get to this level, it’s exciting. This will give people in the area a chance to see college baseball at a high level.”

The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

USM pair to play in Fenway game

University of Southern Maine senior third baseman Brian Marshall and outfielder Adam Lemieux have been named to play in the 30th annual New England Intercollegiate Baseball Coaches Association’s college all-star game at Boston’s Fenway Park Sunday night.

The game will pit the Division I stars against the Division II-III stars, and it will follow the Boston-Seattle game.

The university division team will be named today.

Cumberland’s Lemieux, who played for Greely High School, hit a team-leading .403 for the Huskies. His 48 runs and nine stolen bases were team highs, and he also had 13 doubles, three triples, two homers, and 43 RBIs.

He led the Little East Conference in hits with 77.

Marshall, a native of Danvers, Mass., hit .365 with 25 doubles, five homers, and 38 RBIs. He also scored 41 times.