Maryland baseball dropped their final game of the weekend against No. 22 Iowa in a 12-8 defeat on Sunday. After coming back from trailing in the first two games of the series, the Terps fell victim to a disastrous nine-run, eight-hit fifth inning, digging themselves into a hole they never escaped.
While the final leg of the three game set didn’t produce the results the Terps were looking for, the series was still a success. Maryland still took their first Big Ten matchup of the year after winning on Friday and Saturday, and put up 25 runs over three afternoons.
Kyle McCoy’s performance on the mound was something of a mixed bag. He looked as strong as ever through the majority of his outing, but hit a wall in that ugly fifth inning. The pitcher allowed four singles in that frame alone before being retired from the hump, and his replacements struggled to right the ship as the lead continued to balloon in his absence.
After Maryland (17-10, 2-1 in Big Ten) and Iowa (20-6, 1-2 in Big Ten) spent the weekend using the early innings to build early leads, both teams got off to productive starts in the series finale. Luke Shliger blasted a leadoff home run on the first at-bat of the afternoon for the second day in a row, but the Hawkeyes came back later in the first inning with a Kyle Kuckstorf RBI double.
While McCoy was solid on the mound in the early goings, Ty Langenberg jetted off to a red-hot start to limit every batter after the leadoff jack. He collected six strikeouts in just the three innings and let up just two hits in that span to quiet the Terps lineup before they could cobble together any momentum.
The Maryland offense only really got going in the fourth, with Bobby Zmarzlak capitalizing with a man on base by sending a no-doubt homer well over the left field wall. The next inning saw more of the same as a flurry of Maryland hits created a domineering 6-1 lead for the visiting team.
The bottom of the fifth, though, brought disaster for the Terps. Kyle McCoy ran into trouble by allowing four hits in the frame, exactly as many as he let up in the previous four frames combined. The rally saw the Hawkeyes collect five runs using largely small-ball, and then put up four more after Nate Haberthier entered in relief. The big righty let up an RBI single, and then a crushing three-run homer. By the time the dust cleared, Iowa had scored nine runs in the fifth inning alone to seize a 10-6 lead, completely swinging the game in its favor.
The Terps scored a few more runs in the sixth thanks to some questionable Iowa fielding, bringing the deficit to as close as 10-8. After those brief contributions, Maryland’s offense puttered out as Cade Obermueller diced them up in the batters’ box. The Hawkeyes added a few more runs in the eighth for comfort, and the final score settled down at 12-8.
Maryland will return home for its next outing on Tuesday against William & Mary at 6:30 p.m.
