In the top of the ninth inning, Penn State did something Maryland doesn’t see very often when they intentionally walked Matt Shaw in favor of Nick Lorusso. He’d had an off night, especially for his standards: only one hit through six previous at-bats, including two strikeouts.
Lorusso was forced into one of the most high-pressure spots of the season, with a loss likely sending the Terps plummeting down the country-wide playoff rankings. His Terps, who once trailed 13-6, now had a chance to take a miraculous lead. A six-run seventh inning got them right back in the game, and they’d already muscled out two runs in the inning to pull as close as 15-14.
Down to their last out, he took two balls and a strike before lacing one through the left side gap, bringing in both the tying run and the winning run in one fell swoop to take a 16-15 lead. Ian Petrutz added one more hit, the fifth hit of the inning, all but sealing the 17-15 victory before David Falco Jr. walked away with yet another save.
This most recent game was one in which the Terps seemingly did everything they could to give the win away as they combined for five careless errors, including four costly ones in the infield alone.
The Terps’ bats had no problem with the Penn State pitching, as each Maryland position player managed multiple hits and scored at some point. They totaled 21 hits without a single home run and only five extra-base hits. Their problem through the first eight frames lay in leaving runners on base, wasting 16 base runners over the span of eight different innings.
Maryland made the hike to State College with something to prove, as the last series of the regular season carried heavy implications for the Terps’ seeding situation. Despite sweeping Indiana in their head-to-head three-game slate three weeks ago, both teams woke up on Thursday with dead-even records, yet Indiana’s 27th-ranked RPI dwarfed Maryland’s spot at 50.
Penn State prepared to host the Terps with far lower stakes, as their 6-14 Big Ten record put them third-to-last in the conference standings. The Nittany Lions were swept by Nebraska and Rutgers in their last two series, falling to a pair of programs that Maryland toppled with ease earlier in the spring.
The depth of the Maryland lineup emerged early in the second inning, as Elijah Lambros collected two quick RBI by capitalizing on multiple runners in scoring position before he scored on an infield error. Lambros, Jacob Orr and Kevin Keister, the final three batters in the order, finished the game with a combined record of 7/13 at the plate with seven runs.
It didn’t take long for the Terps to cede the lead to the Nittany Lions, as three separate infield errors stumped three separate infielders to allow easy baserunners. The Penn State bats brought in a pair of runners before loading the bases, and Dean chose an inopportune time to hit a batter and tie the game. A Johnny Piacentino sac-fly brought his team an early 4-3 lead, and a third error at first base enabled a fifth run to tag up. That out would have been the third and final out, but a lengthened inning gave the Nittany Lions more scoring opportunities, which they used to complete a seven-run inning.
Maryland, suddenly forced to work from behind after a nightmarish second inning, eventually began asserting their electric offense. A three-run fourth inning brought the score within one, but the fifth inning left the Terps wanting more after they left a pair stranded on base. Another Penn State run pushed the score to 8-6 in the bottom of that frame, but Maryland wasted even more chances after Eddie Hacopian flew out with two outs to strand runners with the bases loaded.
That would go down as one of the better opportunities of the evening, as the Nittany Lions only continued to pile on after Dean was pulled in favor of Kenny Lippman. A Piacentino single and a Grant Norris triple resulted in three more runs batted in, followed by Norris being doubled in by Bobby Marsh. Lippman was removed to give Logan Ott a try, but no matter; Penn State piled on one more to increase the score to 13-6, the deepest hole of the evening for the Terps.
At their lowest point of the afternoon, Maryland staged a long-awaited comeback to cut the score to 13-12 with a statement seventh inning. The Terps managed three hits and five walks in that frame alone to bring in six runs, but Orr lined out to the pitcher to once again leave the bases loaded. Regardless, the Terps were closer than ever with as much momentum as they’d had all night.
The Maryland relief crew let the close game slip ever so slightly as Nigel Belgrave let up a pair of Penn State runs, but nothing the Terps hadn’t overcome before as they stared down a 15-12 score in the eighth. They busied up the bases by placing runners on the corners, something they had no issue with all night, but once again watched the opportunity vaporize when no one could bring them home.
That was, until their storybook ninth inning. Hacopian, Orr and Matt Woods loaded the bases in preparation for another Keister RBI, bringing the game within two, and Luke Shliger doubled to bring in another Terp. Penn State coach Rob Cooper then made the fateful decision to intentionally walk Shaw to challenge a then-struggling Lorusso, who did his job to take the lead before Petrutz added to it. The Terps entered the bottom of the ninth clinging tight to the 17-15 lead, which they sealed after Falco struck out the last two batters he faced.
The Terps will get the chance to fully break the Nittany Lions tomorrow at 5 when they’ll have a chance to go 8/8 in Big Ten series victories in the season.
