Kevin Keister reached base safely for the second time in the game, flipping the lineup over. Luke Shliger stood at the plate in the top of the fourth, Keister at first, Maryland leading by one.
Shliger got a pitch in the middle of the plate and deposited the ball on the other side of the center field wall. Shliger’s eleventh home run of the year doubled the Maryland lead, 4-1.
“He’s just fearless man,” said head coach Rob Vaughn. “He had a great at-bat, he’s doing what Luke Shliger should do. He’s our captain. He’s a great player.”
Shliger and the Terps offense shined, earning a series win against Indiana, winning game two, 16-2.
The Terps came into game two after a 13-2 victory against the Hoosiers in game one. Maryland’s offense struck early, scoring three runs in the first and then increased the lead putting up a crooked number in the fifth. Nick Dean had a fantastic start pitching seven innings of two run ball, striking out ten Indiana batters.
Maryland hoped for another good pitching performance from the freshman lefty Kyle McCoy. McCoy, starting his second Saturday in a row, came into the game with a 5.23 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP. In McCoy’s last start against Purdue, he pitched six innings allowing only two earned runs.
McCoy’s opposition was Hoosier’s righty Luke Sinnard. Sinnard came into the game with an ERA of four and a WHIP of 1.13. Sinnard’s last start against Ohio was a strong one. Sinnard pitched seven innings allowing two earned runs while striking out eight Ohio batters.
Sinnard labored through the first three frames in this game, matching his run total from the Ohio start in just two innings.
Luke Shliger jumped on the first pitch of the game, sending it to center for a single to start the offensive day for Maryland. Matt Shaw followed him, scorching a double to the wall in left. A bobble by Indiana left fielder Hunter Jessee allowed Shliger to score from first, getting the Terps out to an early lead.
That lead doubled in the second. Elijah Lambros led off the inning with a double to the gap in right center. Jacob Orr bunted him over to third bringing up Kevin Keister who has been one of the hottest hitters for Maryland. Keister added to his 6-11 week, lining a single up the middle to score Lambros.
The Hoosiers were able to get to McCoy in the bottom half of the second, scoring their first run of the game. Brock Tibbitts got a single to start the inning and a hit-by-pitch put a second runner on. The third Hoosier to reach base was Josh Pyne. Pyne singled through the left side of the infield, scoring Tibbitts. McCoy was able to induce two ground balls to get out of the inning, only allowing the one run.
The Terps’ bloop and a blast in the fourth was replicated in the sixth with Matt Shaw doing the blasting. Luke Shliger worked a walk to start it and then Shaw belted his team leading seventeenth home run to center to end it, increasing the Maryland lead, 6-1.
The Terps put up a crooked number in the top of the eighth to ensure the win, scoring nine in the frame. Maryland batted around in the half inning accumulating seven hits, three of them going for extra bases. Matt Woods had the big swing in the inning, launching a grand slam to left field, Maryland’s tenth grand slam of the year.
With the Terps up, 15-1, in the eighth Rob Vaughn decided to pull McCoy, sending in Ryan Van Buren to pitch the bottom half of the inning. McCoy was brilliant in his tenth start of the year. McCoy pitched seven innings, his longest inning total in conference play, allowing a single run in those seven innings of work. McCoy only walked two and struck out one getting most of his outs via the ground out.
“Kyle was outstanding,” said Vaughn. “Tons of strikes, navigated out of some jams and minimized, got us length.”
A Petrutz homer in the top of the ninth ended the scoring for Maryland, bringing the run total to 16. The Hoosiers scored a run in the ninth but Logan Ott was able to finish the game, getting Maryland’s 29th win of the year.
The Terps offense appeared unstoppable putting runners on the bases in every inning except for two. Maryland had twenty hits in the game, half of them being extra base hits. Every player in the lineup had a hit, five had three hits in the game.
“They’re just relentless,” said Vaughn. “I think that’s the biggest thing and that’s how we’ve grown as a unit because we scored some runs early in the year but we weren’t relentless early in the year.”
Pairing that offense with dominant pitching was the recipe for success in the past two games. The Terps offense mashed while the starters painted the corners. Vaughn called these past two games, “by far two best games of the year.”
Maryland will look to get the bats going for a third time as they go for a series sweep against Indiana on Sunday.
