Photo courtesy of Maryland Athletics.
Maryland’s pitching contained two of the biggest offensive threats in NCAA baseball Sunday, but the rest of the Bruins lineup was too much for the Dirty Terps.
Maryland baseball (11-12, 1-5 Big 10) dropped its third consecutive game against the top-ranked UCLA Bruins (20-2, 8-0 Big 10), 14-4, falling below .500 for the first time this season.
Though they fell short of the win, the Terps were able to silence the two biggest bats in the Bruins lineup. Consensus first overall MLB Draft pick Roch Cholowsky finished the day 2-6 with two strikeouts. Will Gasparino, who at one point during the season led the NCAA in home runs, went 1-4 against the Terps with a strikeout.
Freshman pitcher Austin Weiss made his NCAA debut, relieving Logan Hastings. In one inning, Weiss allowed one hit and struck out two of the five batters he faced. He opened his collegiate baseball career by striking out Cholowsky, and after struggling to find the zone for a few batters, ended the inning by striking out Gasparino.
Ryan Costello hit his tenth home run of the season, sending one over the right field wall and putting him in a tie for 16th in the league alongside Cholowsky. Jordan Crosland drove one a similar spot in the seventh inning for a longball of his own – part of a standout two-for-three, two-run performance that put his season batting average to .314.
Maryland’s ace reliever Logan Hastings appeared to be auditioning for a starting job before getting pulled after the third inning. Jake Yeager exited the game after the first inning after giving up six runs on four hits, and Hastings covered the next two innings. He gave up an unearned run and two hits over nine batters faced, but did not return after the third inning.
Maryland will travel to Fredericksburg to take on another top-10 team in UVA on Tuesday.
