WIINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — When Maryland baseball learned of its NCAA regional bracket, players and coaches alike knew the challenge lying ahead: an inevitable clash with the top-ranked team in all of college baseball.
That challenge played itself out on Saturday night — after a five-hour rain delay — and the No. 2-seed Terps failed to rise to the occasion in their biggest test of the season, falling to No. 1-seed Wake Forest, 21-6.
“That’s the number one team in the country,” coach Rob Vaughn said. “They just played like the number one team in the country. That’s what it was.”
Wake Forest wasted no time establishing dominance. Junior right-hander Rhett Lowder struck out four of the first six Maryland batters he faced. The Deacons’ ace left Terp hitters without much of a response to his electric heater and bending breaking ball all night long.
[Lowder’s] stuff was electric,” Vaughn said. “He throws all strikes, they all go different directions. He’s got poise, he’s got intensity … pretty special arm.”
Senior third baseman Nick Lorusso offered a glimmer of hope in the fourth inning with a solo home run to get Maryland on the scoreboard. But by that point, the Terps were trailing by five runs, faced with the near-impossible task of putting together a comeback against one of college baseball’s most electric arms.
While Lowder shut the Terps’ bats down, the Deacons’ offense proved why it’s one of the best in the nation, rattling off four runs in the opening frame. Senior right-hander Nick Dean was met with force from the middle of the Wake Forest lineup when power bats Brock Wilken and Justin Johnson brought home a run each on a single and a double. The next at-bat, two more Deacons scored off a Pierce Bennett single to right field.
After a scoreless second, Wake Forest got right back to raking in the third inning. It tacked on two additional runs with a double and a triple. Dean once again labored through the inning, facing seven batters and extending his earned run total to six.
While Dean continued to battle, his tank emptied out in the fifth inning when he neared 100 pitches. Redshirt sophomore right-hander Nigel Belgrave relieved Dean with one out in the frame, walking the first batter before allowing three runs on back-to-back singles. The result was an eight-run deficit for Maryland, while Belgrave recorded no outs and was replaced by junior left-hander Logan Ott on the mound to finish the inning. Ott worked his way through the frame with no more runs, but the damage was done, as Maryland trailed 9-1.
Both sides went quiet until Lorusso stepped back up to the plate in the top of the seventh. The senior smashed his second homer of the night off Lowder, putting the Maryland offense on his back and cutting the deficit to six. Lowder failed to record an out in the seventh inning, exiting with two runners on base and two runs on the board.
Upon Lowder’s exit, the Terps had a prime opportunity to capitalize with a bases-loaded jam and junior second baseman Kevin Keister at the plate. But Keister struck out, keeping the Terps in a six-run deficit.
The Wake Forest bats took over from there, as Nate Haberthier, Caleb Estes, Joey Colucci and Matt Orlando allowed the Deacon run total to balloon to 21. The number one team in the nation never looked back, and despite the Terps tacking on a few more runs to bring their total to six, they fell in disappointing fashion.
Maryland will look to avoid elimination from the NCAA Tournament at 2 p.m. on Sunday when it takes on George Mason.
“We talked about how important it is to stay on the winner’s side [of the bracket] if you can,” Vaughn said. “Now that you’re on the other side, you just survive and advance.”
