Photo courtesy of Dylan Davies/Maryland Athletics.
Brock Tapper paid the price when he challenged Ryan Costello.
Maryland’s home run king turned the game around for the Terps with a go-ahead two-run home run to steal the game — and the series.
Maryland baseball (10-5, 0-0 B1G) defeated Troy (6-9, 0-0 SUN) 7-6 on Sunday afternoon, taking the series two games to one.
Costello was the hero of the game for the Terps. Down 4-3 in the top of the ninth, he got a hold of a fastball and hit his second home run of the game, scoring himself and David Mendez to go up 5-4. Maryland would build on that lead with a Jordan Crosland two-run home run, taking a 7-4 lead that they held to the end.
The game seemed to get away from the Terps in the fourth inning. With no outs and the bases loaded, Maryland starter Jake Yeager gave up a bases-clearing double to Nolan Book. He loaded up the bases again before yielding to Andrew Koshy, who balked in another run before getting out of the inning.
Manager Matt Swope said his team overcame the four-run deficit by sticking to what they knew.
“We were getting some hits early, but we couldn’t really push through,” Swope said. “[I] just [told] them to stick with it, win the last three, stick with the process and try to outlast them.”
The Terps’ comeback started in the eighth inning. Down 4-1, Rylen Stockton brought Maryland within one with a two-run shot, and two batters later the Terps had a prime scoring chance — bases loaded and one out. They were unable to convert, with reliever Brock Tapper pitching to two groundouts.
Maryland put starting pitcher Benjamin Stubbs in several dangerous situations, but was unable to capitalize. The Terps put two runners on the base path in the second, third, and fourth innings but were unable to score — they finished the game with 11 men left on base.
Costello’s two home runs kept him alive on the NCAA home run leaderboard. His eight long balls are two shy of UCLA’s Will Gasparino and Georgia’s Daniel Jackson, both in the lead with ten.
Maryland will next travel to Morgantown to take on No. 23 West Virginia for a single game.
