BALTIMORE, Maryland May 13, 2014 - It seems so long ago. April 22 in Morgantown, West Virginia, the homestanding Mountaineers hammered the Terrapins, 14-2. The Terps never seemed so far away from anything good, like the NCAA tournament and even the ACC tournament. And yet now, 22 days later, Maryland is like a new team. To begin with, they haven't lost lately. Today, in the last regular season game, they beat West Virginia - rallied from two runs down, actually - to improve to 34-19. The last five wins have all been games in which the Terps had to come from behind to win.
Six of those 19 losses came during a seven game run in late April that began when they lost a late lead and then lost a game against ACC-rival Georgia Tech which, had they won, would have given them a sweep of the series. The lopsided loss in Morgantown was the second loss. After a home win against George Mason, Maryland flew up to Boston and lost all three games against one of the ACC's Bottom Three; in this case, Boston College. Then, they capped off the bad run by losing at home to James Madison on April 29. Then April ended and May started. Maryland has not lost in May. Nine straight wins: May 2, May 3 and May 4 at home against Notre Dame; May 6 in Richmond, Virginia against VCU; May 7 in Aberdeen, Maryland, at Ripken Stadium, against Towson, May 9, May 10 and May 11 in Pittsburgh at the Panters of the University of Pittsburg, and May 13 back in College Park against West Virginia.
Even Terp Coach John Szefc admitted, after the game, that he has visions of playing in the NCAA Tournament on his mind. “This was a really good win for us and an important win for us for a lot of reasons,” Szefc said on the school athletic web page. “They [the Mountaineers] had a 27 RPI coming in. That’s a really good RPI win for us. I’m hopeful that it can potentially get us into the top 30 RPI wise. When you’re building your resume for the NCAA tournament, those wins are really, really important wins.”
The Mountaineers struck first Tuesday afternoon, scoring a single run in the top of the first off of Maryland starter Zach Morris. With one out, Bobby Boyd singled, then moved to third base on a double by Billy Fleming. Boyd then scored on Ryan McBroom's sacrifice fly. Maryland tied the game in the second inning. With one out, Tim Lewis and Anthony Papio hit back-to-back singles, putting Maryland runners at the corners. Lewis then scored on Nick Cieri's single. But the Mountaineers retook the lead in their half of the third inning on another sacrifice fly by McBroom.
Maryland took the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth. Papio walked to lead off and raced to third on Cieri's single to right field. Kevin Martir then hit a hard single to left, scoring Papio, with Cieri stopping at second. The next batter, Charlie White, grounded to second base, but both runners advaneed. Cieri, at third, then raced home when Lamont Wade laid down a perfect safety squeeze bunt. Wade was credited with an RBI.
The final run of the game was scored by Maryland in the bottom of the fifth. Jose Cuas reached base on a throwing error, and raced to second base on Blake Schmit's sacrifice bunt. From there, Cuas scored when Tim Lewis followed with a single up the middle.
After the fifth inning the pitchers on both side took over. Morris went four innings for the Terps, giving up the two Mountaineer runs on three hits. He also walked three while striking out one. He was followed by Bobby Ruse, Ben Brewster and, making his first relief appearance of the season, Jake Stinnett. Ruse was credited with the win. He fired two and one-third innings of shut out baseball, giving up only one hit and one walk. Brewster was almost as impressive, going one and two-thirds innings, and surrendering one hit and one walk. He struck out three of the five men he retired. Stinnett was Stinnett, pitching a perfect inning and striking out two of the three men he faced. The Mountaineers, in losing, dropped to 27-21.
Maryland is now finished with regular season play. The players and coaches can take in this weekend's final series for most of the ACC teams. Szefc will be able to line up his rotation for the very busy ACC tournament. He would prefer to be seeded sixth or higher so that he can avoid the initial play in games involving teams seeded 7,8,9 and 10. The tournament starts May 20.
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