By Megan Smedley

It was a night of rarietes at Bob “Turtle” Smith stadium on Friday. Left-handed pitcher Willie Rios got the start at first base. The game lasted nearly four hours. And Mike Shawaryn struggled through his outing, earning his first loss of the season. The Terps fell to Indiana 6-5.

Indiana got out to an early lead in the first following a Scott Donley single. They added another pair of runs in the third. From early on, Shawayrn struggled with his command and hitting his spots.

“I just didn’t have my stuff,” Shawayrn said. “I wasn’t really as sharp as I’ve been. I was leaving the ball up a little bit and they were able to get some hits. I didn’t have my A stuff and they took advantage of it.”

The Terps tied up the game in the bottom of the third thanks to a bases-loaded single from Brandon Lowe. Jose Cuas helped the Terps take the lead in the fourth with towering solo shot to deep left, his eighth of the season. Indiana retook the lead in the sixth when Nick Ramos grounded to shortstop Kevin Smith. Smith threw it over to Willie Rios who was unable to grab the ball, sending it out of play. At this point, Coach John Szefc decided to bring in Ryan Selmer. Shawaryn went only 5.2 innings allowing five runs on nine hits. Home plate umpire Jeff Doy maintained a tight strike zone throughout the game.

“You don’t let that affect your game,” Shawaryn said. “You try to pitch the umpire’s strike zone. We had to make an adjustment.”

However, his teammates aren’t too worried about this outing.

“He’s been great all year,” said Jose Cuas. “I’m not going to doubt him now because of this start. I’m pretty sure he’s going to come out next Friday and do what he does.”

The Terps mounted comebacks in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings but were unable to capitalize with runners in scoring position. The team left 10 runners on base tonight and grounded into two double plays despite being walked 11 times.

“It’s frustrating when we leave guys on base,” Cuas said. “Especially in scoring position with less than two outs. I mean that’s things we work on day in and day out in practice. Execution, execution we couldn’t get it done there.”

With this loss, Maryland drops to 32-14 on the season. Game two will be played Saturday afternoon.