Photo by Rose Fernandes/ Maryland Athletics
Following three straight hits in the opening frame, Georgetown graduate student Connor Price stepped to the plate. Shortly after, Price sent a 2-2 pitch over the left field wall for a three-run home run, giving the Hoyas a 4-0 advantage.
Georgetown (14-30, 2-10 Big East) never looked back after Price’s home run, downing Maryland baseball (20-26, 6-15 Big Ten) 11-8 on Tuesday at Capital One Field. The loss brings the Terps’ losing streak to three.
Starting on the mound for Maryland was redshirt sophomore Brayden Ryan. The outing was Ryan’s sixth straight midweek start for a Terps pitching staff that has struggled to carve out roles.
Ryan carried a 5.53 ERA entering Tuesday’s contest, but won each of his prior two outings, with his best coming in his last appearance against Towson. The right-hander allowed one run in seven innings pitched, while punching out six batters.
The Merrimack transfer struggled at the start of the year, but has pitched well in his recent starts. A big reason for that is finding the strike zone and staying ahead of the batters in counts.
Ryan had five strikeouts in his first six appearances of the season. He doubled that with five against Delaware, added four more at Mount St. Mary’s a week later, and kept it going in his last appearance with six against Towson.
Ryan continued to pound the strike zone in Tuesday’s game against Georgetown, throwing 36 of his 45 pitches for strikes. But this time, the Hoyas took advantage of the hittable balls. Ryan surrendered four hits to the first four batters he saw — two of which were home runs.
The Hoyas continued to attack Ryan in the third inning, tacking on three more hits and forcing Ryan to leave the mound after allowing seven runs through 2.2 innings.
Freshman Logan Hastings relieved Ryan and stabilized the Hoyas’ lead, throwing 2.1 scoreless innings. Hastings has been a prominent piece of the Maryland bullpen with three innings pitched against Oregon, Indiana, and Nebraska in the Terps’ last three series.
On the mound for Georgetown was graduate student Griffin O’Connor. The right-hander pitched against the Terps in both of their prior games this season, combining for three innings pitched and allowing five hits with only one earned run.
O’Connor had another strong start against the Terps in his third go-around, surrendering only three earned runs in five innings pitched. He retired the last nine batters he faced, enabling the Hoyas to grow their lead.
The Georgetown pitching staff blitzed the strike zone, throwing 87 strikes in their 141 pitches, consistently getting ahead of the Terps in at-bats.
After a third-inning knock, the Terps did not score again until the eighth inning when redshirt sophomore Hollis Porter took advantage of some of those pitches in the zone. Porter hit two home runs for the second time this season, and ended the day hitting 2-for-4 with five RBIs
Porter now leads the Terps with 18 home runs on the season, the eighth most ever for a Maryland player, and is now tied with four players for the second most home runs on the year.
Porter wasn’t the only player with two home runs on the day as Georgetown leadoff hitter Kavi Caster hit two solo home runs, with his final blast giving his team a 10-6 lead. The graduate student ended the game hitting 3-for-5 and now has seven home runs this season.
The Terps rallied for two runs in the final inning and brought the tying run to the plate twice, but a double play and a pop-up extinguished the Terps’ comeback attempt.
They will now look to Happy Valley as they will play a series at Penn State this weekend — a team with the same number of conference wins as Maryland.
