Photo courtesy of Ian Cox/Maryland Terrapins
Alex Calarco hit four home runs during last year’s campaign, but he found his power in Maryland baseball’s (2-1) doubleheader and hit three on Saturday.
The Terps went even on the doubleheader after losing game one to Ball State 5-3 and bounced back with a win against 19-1 Mercyhurst.
Game 1
The Terps faced a good test in the morning against the preseason MAC favorite Ball State Cardinals (2-1).
Sophomore Joey McMannis got the start on the mound after an impressive freshman season that promoted him from the bullpen to the starting lineup.
Ball State started the scoring early in the game as the defense got flustered in the first inning. The Cardinals finished the first inning with three hits and three runs. The first run scored on an Eddie Hacopian error and all three runs were unearned for McMannis.
McMannis would stay in the game after a mound visit by pitching coach Jimmy Johnson and retired 10 straight batters.
On the other side, Ball State’s starting pitcher Sophomore Keegan Johnson, a Maryland native, had an impressive outing. Through six innings he ended with four strikeouts and only three runs allowed.
Throughout the battle with Ball State – the Terps bats just came up short. They ended the game with six hits, two of which were solo homers. The Terps failed to capitalize on many of their hits, leaving six runners on base.
“We had some opportunities later in the game, you know it was a good baseball game, we just got to be cleaner,” head coach Matt Swope said.
Calarco hit a solo home run in the fifth inning, and redshirt sophomore Hollis Porter hit another solo home run in the sixth, marking Porter’s first hit as a Terp.
Senior Omar Melendez came out of the bullpen to follow up Joey McMannis and was instantly tested. Melendez in the fifth inning had runners on second and third base with only one out, but put together two strikeouts to get him out of the pickle.
However, he gave up a two-run home run to DJ Scheumann in the 6th inning which created the lead that would stay for the rest of the game.
One last silver lining came when freshman Logan Hastings came into the game in the seventh inning for the first time in his collegiate career and completed his first inning with three quick outs on just nine pitches. He put away six of the seven batters that he faced.
Eddie Hacopian had two errors which helped the Cardinals bat in three unearned runs. He moved over to third base defensively this year and those were the first signs of any real growing pains.
Game 2
For the second game of the day the Terps took on the Mercyhurst Lakers (0-3). Mercyhurst was coming off of a rough morning where they lost to the UAB Blazers 3-20.
This game went more to script for the Terps, taking it handily.
Sophomore Evan Smith made the start for the Terps and pitched four innings, as all three starting pitchers did for the Terps this weekend. He finished with six strikeouts and only gave up three hits and one run off an RBI triple from Lakers’ senior Ranciel Ventura.
On the offensive end for the Terps, the bats finally found a rhythm. They drove in some early runs off of a Jordan Crosland solo homer in the second inning, as well as a Brayden Martin RBI single and a run off a wild Lakers’ throw to first in the fourth inning.
But the story of the game happened in the fifth inning, where for the second time this weekend the Terps had a six-run inning capitalized by a grand slam. This time Calarco took the lid off the game with a grand slam on a 1-0 count.
That wasn’t even it for Calarco. He hit his third home run of the day just an inning later, this one a three-run home run.
“For him to get two big swings like that, it was big for the team and uplifting for everybody. And again he gets all the credit for having to catch three games with Devin [Russell] being down, that’s not easy,” Swope said, “I’m happy for him because I feel like last year he had a little bit of a down year, and he would probably tell you the same, and now he’s just enjoying himself playing baseball, and it’s been great so far.”
Also, in the fifth inning grad student Jack Wren came out of the bullpen in relief of Evan Smith and found some instant success, as he went for three shutout innings where he had six strikeouts.
As the Terps started to rotate the starters out of the game in the eighth inning, grad student Devin Milberg came in from the bullpen to close the game.
The Terps’ offense didn’t exactly cruise to the finish line, however, as a group of freshmen got their debuts and added to the lead. Freshman Paul Jones II’s first hit as a Terp was an RBI single that brought home freshman Adrian Driscoll and freshman Parker Corbin who both got their first collegiate runs.
Then to add to that Mercyhurst’s sixth error brought home sophomore Jacob Orr, freshman Dom Moats, and Jones II which brought us to the final score of 19-1.
“I thought the guys did a nice job bouncing back in that second game,” Swope said, “I told the guys it’s nice to end on a high note.”
Besides Calarco’s ridiculous day, another Terp had a strong doubleheader with Brayden Martin. Martin went 5-for-7 with a walk, two runs and an RBI in the two games.
The doubleheader concludes the weekend of baseball for the Dirty Terps and they will now look to Tuesday where they play Delaware in College Park at 4 p.m. on BTN+.
