By Megan Smedley

Not many things went right for Maryland Baseball on Friday afternoon as they opened up a weekend series against High Point University. Their ace wasn’t great, the bats never really started swinging, and fielding errors plagued the team. Head Coach John Szefc called the game “probably one of the worst games we’ve played all year.” Maryland fell 7-2.

Mike Shawaryn looked to bounce back from his troubled outing against Iowa last weekend. He started out strong, striking out four of the first six batters. In the third, Shawaryn ran into trouble following a hit by pitch. Hunter Lee sliced a single past first baseman Kevin Biondic to bring Zente home. A heads up defensive double play ended the inning. Costes caught a fly ball, setting up a 7-5-4-2 double play, getting Shawaryn out of the jam.

Maryland bats struggled to get going only having two hits from Biondic and Nickens to start the game. More trouble in the fourth after an initial pop up, Shawaryn hit two batters and walked another, loading up the bases. Austen Zente flied out to center, scoring Dominic Fazio. Drew Fopeano ripped a double down the right field line, adding another run. That would be it for Shawaryn as he surrendered three runs off three hits, striking out five. This is shortest outing for Shawaryn in his career at Maryland. The previous was March 7, 2014 against UC Wilmington (4in.). Shawaryn’s ERA jumped to 4.15 from this game.

“Mike is definitely not Mike right now,” said Szefc. “He’s gotta snap out of that cause we’re gonna need him to…He can clearly lose the zone at any given time and he’ll struggle to get back in there.”

Ryan Selmer came in for relief and was able to get a quick out to end the inning. After four innings, High Point led 3-0. Hunter Lee hit a homerun just over the right field fence to start the fifth inning to extend their lead to four.

Maryland had a huge opportunity to get back in the game in the fifth. Costes and Bechtold drilled singles and Papio walked to load up the bases for Justin Morris. However, the Terps could not capitalize as Morris struck out looking and Nickens popped out.

Selmer ran into trouble in the sixth inning. Zente sliced a ball to Smith who fired it over to Biondic. The throw was high, taking Biondic off the bag and extending the inning. Selmer intentionally walked Fopeano, only to backfire. The next batter, JJ Woodard, ripped a single scoring both runners. Rob Galligan came in for relief to get the final out of the inning.

Maryland chipped away in the bottom of the sixth inning. Nick Dunn singled to right before Marty Costes came to the plate. Costes took the pitch and sent it way over the center field wall. That homerun is Costes’s fourth of the year. At the end of the sixth, Maryland trailed 6-2.

“Marty’s gotta lot of juice,” said Szefc. “He’s a really good young hitter.”

Andrew Green took the mound in the seventh, hoping to hold the deficit to four runs. Tim Mansfield scored off a walk, stolen base, and throwing error by Justin Morris. The Terps were unable to get anything going in the seventh. After seven, Maryland was down 7-2. Zach Guth came into to pitch out the rest of the game, pitching two quick innings. Maryland bats were unable to come up clutch in the final innings, leaving the final score of the game at 7-2 High Point. This loss drops the Terps back to .500 on the year at 13-13. The team looks to bounce back on Saturday with a 2 p.m. first pitch.