Rebound!

Maryland's baseball team came home after last weekend's season opening series at No. 10 LSU without a win.  The pitching was pretty darn good but not good enough when the opponent is as stacked as are the Bayou Bengals.  Back at Turtle Smith Stadium in College Park, Maryland opened its home schedule with two doubleheaders against Oakland University of Michigan.  The Terps won Friday's doubleheader easily, winning the opener,15-4, and the raw, cold and rainy nightcap, 8-4 (outdoor baseball in Maryland in February, where the normal high is 47 and the low 33?).  The teams had originally intended to play on Saturday, also, but a forecasted day of rain was the catalyst for moving that day's games to Sunday.  Maryland routed the Golden Grizzlies, 8-0 in the opener, which began at 11 am.  The nightcap, however, was a different story. Oakland pushed across single runs in the second, third and fourth innings against Maryland Freshman Starter Alex Robinson, and made those runs stand up until the bottom of the eighth.  

Freshman Lamonte Wade had led off the eighth with a single.  He advanced to second on a wild pitch, but was still there with two outs.  That's when senior catcher Jack Cleary singled to score Wade and tie the score.  The Terps called on Jake Stinnet to pitch starting in the top of the ninth and Stinnet responded by retiring all six men he faced, five on infield ground outs and one by strike out.  In the tenth, the Terps rewarded Stinnet with the win by pushing across the winning run.  Anthony Papilo walked to lead off the tenth and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Greg Olenski.  Freshman Catcher Kevin Martir, who entered the game in the ninth inning after Cleary was pinch run for, followed with the game winning single, pushing the Terps above .500 (4-3) for the first time this season.  

In the opener, Brady Kirkpatrick and three relief pitchers scattered four hits, and Martir went 3-4 in the Terps' shutout win.  Charles White, who stole ten bases in the four games, was 2-2 with three runs scored, and K. J. Hockaday and Kyle Convissar each drove in three runs for Maryland. 

Maryland is off on Monday, but travels to Harrisonburg, Virginia on Tuesday to take on James Madison.  Then on Friday the Terps begin a four-game weekend series with Princeton.