A baseball game that included 29 hits, 35 total runs and six home runs from three Maryland batters ended in a 25-10 victory over Maine on Friday. Maryland’s first home series of the season was a pure scoring bonanza as the Terps improved to 6-7 on the year.

The Terps shook off a three hour rain delay to conduct what was essentially nine innings of batting practice as the Maryland lineup set the tone with a dozen runs in the first three innings. Nick Lorusso, Matt Shaw and Elijah Lambros each drilled two home runs, and Lambros collected a team-high seven RBI. Jason Savacool performed fantastically for his second win of the season, giving up only two hits over a six inning span.

“I know that was a messy game and it was really one sided, but that team’s way better than they showed,” Maryland coach Rob Vaughn. “[Savacool] did a great job coming out and attacking the strike zone offensively. Jason was really good today.”

Despite their sub-par results on the road (3-6), the Terps have done just fine holding down the fort at Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium in their limited sample size. Across three different isolated Tuesday matchups Maryland has gone 2-1, toppling Delaware and, most recently, UMBC in their last two chances. The game against the Retrievers saw the Terps handily take the matchup in a 12-6 beating. 

Conversely, Maine hasn’t won a series since mid-February against Pitt in its season opener. They then went on to drop five straight games against a variety of opponents in the Penn State Tournament, finally earning an elusive win against Winthrop University on March 5 in a 10-7 victory. It was a game in which Jake Rainess and Jeremiah Jenkins each recorded 4 RBI, with Jenkins walking off the Eagles with a three-run blast in the 10th inning.

The Terps wasted no time getting to work, with Lorusso and Shaw punishing Maine pitcher Colin Fitzgerald with a pair of solo jacks to put Maryland up 2-0 in the first. The two sluggers swapped spots in the lineup for the first time this season, netting Lorusso his fifth home run in just 13 games and Shaw his second.

Savacool, Maryland’s now routine Friday starter, took the mound to get the home series started. He pitched an inning and elicited tons of weak contact, but looked to settle in a bit more in the following frame to add a pair of strikeouts to his growing collection. 

Unwilling to let an inning go by without adding to the rapidly built lead, the Terps got right back to business in the second. A base-drawing run set the stage for Matt Woods to score on an Elijah Lambros groundout, and a wild pitch immediately after invited Eddie Hacopian to steal home to bump the advantage up to four. Time and time again, the bottom of the Maryland lineup goes above and beyond to prove their value at getting on base.

Another inning brought another dirty inning for Maine, with this one proving to be fatal. Walks to Ian Petrutz and Woods combined with a Kevin Keister double loaded the bases for Fitzgerald in no time. A Hacopian dribbler resulted in an out, but not before Petrutz added a fifth run to the mounting total. Another walk, this time to Bobby Zmarzlak, loaded the bases right back up, and Lambros stepped up once again to fully take advantage of the grand slam opportunity. This made for the centerfielder’s fifth RBI in just the third inning and fourth home run, just behind Lorusso and Petrutz.

Just when the rally looked to be petering out, the top of the lineup added the fourth and fifth moonshots of the evening with Lorusso and Shaw smacking back-to-back homers for the second time in the hour to add three more runs to the Terps’ embarrassment of riches. Fitzgerald eventually got his third out, but not before attributing 12 earned runs to his name.

“It’s awesome,” said Lorusso on getting to Fitzgerald early. “We devote some of that success to the pitchers we’ve faced previously. Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, they all got some studs. It was definitely important seeing that.”

While a new pitcher, Blaine Cockburne, entered for Maine, Savacool comfortably settled into a groove. He had no issue with the Black Bears batters, and after relenting a hit to the first batter he faced in Jake Rainess, didn’t do it again until his final inning.

Even with what had become a ridiculous dozen-run lead, the Terps made sure to whittle away at the next Maine pitcher. Woods sent a rocket bouncing off the top of the outfield wall and legged out a triple, scoring with ease after another Hacopian sac-RBI to count as their 13th run. Terps continued finding their ways to first, and Shliger and Lorusso added to their successful nights to run the score up to 15 with a pair of RBI.

After the Terps put up a rare scoreless inning, Maine finally snapped the shutout in the sixth inning after Jeremiah Jenkins drove in a lone run to give the Black Bears any kind of life. Savacool, still puttering along, got his third out to wrap up the inning and finalized a masterful six-inning, six-strikeout, two-hit performance.

“He had a great start,” Vaughn said. “He got out there and was able to change things up every time we scored and got us into the sixth with a big lead, that’s what a Friday night guy’s supposed to do.”

Looking for any way to make the night’s offensive explosion even wilder, Lambros made himself the third player to smack multiple home runs that night to yet again bring in Zmarzlak. This made for seven RBI, which somehow didn’t even make up half of Maryland’s total of 17.

Ryan van Buren entered to take the ace’s place, with coach Vaughn looking to get his reliever going in a low stakes situation. Maine added a second run, but still didn’t come close to threatening Maryland’s 15 run advantage.

After even more Maine relievers toiled away trying to tame the Maryland lineup, the Black Bears felt they had to insert a position player on the mound in Matt McElwain. The Terps responded by emptying their bench, yet the runs kept on coming. Luke Zeisloft’s double to deep center brought in another score, and Keister capitalized on another passed ball to bring the lead to 19-2 in the seventh.

A James Heffley hit gave two more batters an easy trip home, further padding the lead to 21-2. McElwain was chased off the bump in favor of a seventh pitcher, Cam Rendell, who mercifully closed the inning.

The Terps took little-used reliever Joey Colucci for a spin, but the pitcher let up four runs to the Black Bears. Continued fielding errors and pitching inadequacies led the way for an eight-run eighth inning, forcing multiple Maryland pitching changes before they entered the bottom of the frame still up 21-10. Maine racked up five hits in the eighth, more than twice they had in the seven innings that came before (nine). 

Maryland further padded their lead the next chance they got, putting together their third inning of at least four runs to push the wild outing to a score of 25-10 to enter the ninth. The Terps held on, and Andrew Johnson sealed the blowout.

The game was mostly settled after the Terps went up 19-2, with everything after being more of a result of both coaches trying a variety of unproved prospects in the field. 

“We haven’t exploded like we did tonight,” Lorusso said. “Getting to do that tonight is something  special and something that we can continue to do all year.”

The Terps will get another stab at building on their win count on Saturday at 2 p.m.