Maryland baseball looked to bounce back after a heartbreaking walk-off defeat in the second game of its three-game series with Louisiana.  

Under head coach Matt Swope, Maryland has typically responded well after series-opening losses. The Terps have a 60% winning percentage in the second game of a series after dropping the first.

The loss, a walk-off win in the bottom of the ninth where the Cajuns saw four runs crossed in the final frame, was described by Swope as a “learning experience”.

But rather than returning to the win-column on Saturday, the Terps got pummeled and fell to Louisiana, 9-1.

Freshman starter Nic Morlang took the ball for the Terps in Lafayette, and after a scoreless three innings, he began to run into trouble in the fourth.

A walk and a double, respectively, caused Morlang to give up a two-run single to Lee Amedee. That opened the floodgates for the Raging Cajuns. 

Morlang finished with five earned runs, two walks and a strikeout in three innings pitched. 

The Cajuns added to the damage in the bottom of the sixth, with an RBI single from Amedee. Andrew Koshy walked a batter, spiked a wild pitch and then allowed a run-scoring knock. 

Case Gibbs was solid in relief for the Terps, as the southpaw totaled five outs and two strikeouts in his second appearance of the season.  

“In this kind of environment that’s exactly what you wanna see from a guy like that,” Swope said.

The Terps’ bats were very quiet throughout, as Raging Cajuns starting pitcher Andrew Hermann dominated. Hermann went 6 1/3 innings pitched, allowing only two hits on 116 pitches. 

The Terps finally got an offensive spark in the top of the seventh when catcher Rylen Stockton went deep to left to make it a 6-1 ballgame.  

“He’s just a gamer, that’s kinda what we knew we were gonna get in the portal, just a bulldog,” Swope said.

The Raging Cajuns continued to pour it on in the bottom half of the seventh against Stephen Donigan in his first collegiate appearance for the Terps. Donigan gave up a two-run blast to left field by Rigoberto Hernandez, which extended Louisiana’s lead to 8-1. 

The Raging Cajuns tacked on some insurance in the bottom of the eighth after they loaded the bases and got an RBI single by Owen Galt . 

The Terps finished with only five hits in the ballgame and fell to 3-3 on the season.