Gardner region’s top coach

NEW ORLEANS >> Umass Lowell track & field head coach Gary Gardner has been named the 2023 USTFCCCA Northeast Region men’s indoor track & field head Coach of the Year.

In his 23rd year at the helm, Gardner helped the River Hawk men’s team capture its second consecutive America East indoor track & field title. With 185 points, Umass Lowell claimed the crown at the conference championships, 54 points ahead of the second-place team.

Gardner’s distance athletes accounted for 98 of the 185 points, with eight men scoring in more than one event. Five River Hawks logged sub-4:10 minute miles, and eight went sub8:25 in the 3,000-meter. Gardner and his staff were also named the 2023 America

East Coaching Staff of the Year for the second straight year, sweeping the award on the men’s and women’s sides.

Softball

PISCATAWAY, N.J. >> Graduate student Tori Mueller (Clovis, Calif.) totaled three hits and knocked in the winning run of game two with a ninthinning sacrifice fly to help the Umass Lowell softball team sweep day one of the

Rutgers Tournament.

Both of the River Hawks’ victories were one-run games and won in comeback fashion to add to the excitement. The team first defeated Saint Peter’s (124), 3-2, before forcing extra innings against Iona (4-121) and eventually taking the 4-3 decision in nine.

“We really rallied in both games as a team to get gritty and manufacture the runs we needed to win,” said head coach Jen Starek.

Mueller was one of three River Hawks (8-9-1) to record three hits. She was joined by graduate student Mya Case (Syracuse, N.Y.), who went 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBI, and junior Morgan Fisher (Glassboro, N.J.), who hit .429 with two RBI of her own.

Baseball

NEWARK, Del. — The Umass Lowell baseball team fell 20-2 to Delaware in game one of the weekend series.

Sophomore Jacob Humphrey (Standish, Maine) and senior Frank Wayman (Horseheads, N.Y.) led the team (2-13) with two hits apiece. Humphrey and sophomore Alex Luccini (Hopedale) tallied an RBI each, while junior Fritz Genther (Kingston, N.Y.) and sophomore Conor Kelly (Hopkinton) each scored one run.