By Henry Brown and Ryan Colasanti
No. 18 Maryland baseball took its first home victory against Delaware on Tuesday with a dominant 8-3 showing pushing them to 4-4 on the young season. The Terps did everything they’ve done in all their wins, as rock-solid pitching, headlined by Logan Ott, was supported by timely run support all throughout the afternoon.
”Logan was outstanding,” Maryland Coach Rob Vaughn said. “Good pace, mixing pitches, ahead of everybody. You need strike throwers who can mix pitches, and he’s really worked. He’s just a guy I trust with the ball in his hand.”
The Terps entered with a 3-4 record, which looks underwhelming without the context of the Ole Miss series last weekend. Maryland dominated the Rebels in the series opener before dropping the next two games, which saw a pitching collapse as No. 4 Ole Miss took the finale by double-digit runs in an 18-8 mercy rule trouncing.
Delaware, for its part, had some experience with the Rebels, having been swept by them in their own season opener. Ole Miss racked up 35 runs in just three games, and the Blue Hens put up a paltry total of six.
Kyle McCoy got his first collegiate start for Maryland’s weekday game, which usually sees a variety of bullpen arms pitch for short periods. He threw well, recording two strikeouts in his only inning of work so as to save some energy for the upcoming weekend’s slate of games.
Luke Shliger, leadoff man for the Terps, reached base instantly with a leadoff walk to set up Maryland’s row of sluggers. Ian Petrutz, the hottest hitter in the lineup, soon cranked his fifth home run of the season to give his team a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning, a point Maryland would lead decisively onward.
Reliever Logan Ott took the reins for McCoy in the second, and tossed a clean inning to keep the blue hens at bay. It would be the start of a highly productive appearance for the senior lefty, who went on to pitch over half of the game by consistently drawing fieldable contact from Delaware batters.
The very next inning saw the Terps get right back to work running up the score, with Kevin Keister and Lambros reaching base to set up the top of the batting order. Shliger delivered, scoring two on a double to shallow left center to run the score up to 4-0.
A rare scoreless inning would pass before yet another Maryland offensive explosion, thanks again to Terps repeatedly reaching base. Keister continued to flex his plate discipline by drawing a walk to reach base, and Elijah Lambros did the rest by shooting a line drive homer over the left field wall to push the lead to six and drive Delaware starter Nelson Wyatt off the mound.
“I’d say having an approach, I didn’t have an approach last year,” said Lambros on how he’s changed between seasons. “I barely played…only getting 33 at bats last year, it’s hard to really tap into anything.”
Ott took the shutout into the sixth inning, but didn’t take long to give that up. Joey Loynd doubled and made his way to third on a pop-out, and Jake Dunion drove his man in to get the Blue Hens on the board, 6-1. Another double at the hands of Owe Petrich added another run ended Ott’s admirable five inning effort in which he racked up seven strikeouts in relief.
The Terps continued slapping hard contact off of reliever Dan Frake in the bottom of that inning, breaking through once again with a Lorusso single to bring Shliger and Shaw aboard. This rang in as the fourth inning that Maryland scored two runs en route to its going up 8-2.
Andrew Johnson, who took over for Ott to close out the prior inning, ran into trouble immediately for his first full inning on the bump by putting two on base before recording an out. He came close to escaping the jam but ultimately relented another hit to JJ Freeman to add another Delaware runand subsequently surrendered pitching responsibilities to David Falco Jr. to close the frame.
The Terps continued seeking hits in the face of Delaware rumblings, evidenced in Keister and Hacopian reaching first with the help of shortstop Freeman’s second and third errors of the day. This didn’t amount to any score, but Maryland kept the pressure on the Blue Hens to match their mark.
Maryland’s closing pitching core looked firmly in control for the final two innings after getting knocked around by Ole Miss over the weekend. Falco dealt a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth, and Nigel Belgrave struck out the final three batters he faced to close the door on Delaware.
Eight was tonight’s magic number; not only was this their final run count, but it’s also the amount of hits and RBI they totaled. After Coach Vaughn identified the importance of hitting with guys on base over their weekend defeats, the Terps delivered by stepping it up when opportunities presented themselves (they also struck out eight times as a team, with not one Maryland batter doing it more than once).
The Terps will need all the momentum they can get heading into this weekend, which offers an unenviable gauntlet of opponents for the Cambria College Classic. They’ll once again try their hand against the mighty Ole Miss Rebels before facing off against No. 7 Vanderbilt the day after, and finish the weekend off against Hawaii.
“I thought our offense had a good weekend,” Shliger said on how they’re preparing for the road ahead. “We were able to produce a lot of runs against a good staff…I think we’re in for a good weekend.”
