Maryland softball dropped both games of a Wednesday doubleheader to Rutgers in College Park. Despite solid pitching performances from Brenna Nation and Madison Martin, the offense and defense faltered all afternoon. Here's how it went:
Game summaries
Brenna Nation pitched well, allowing just five hits, four walks and one earned run. The redshirt junior went the full seven innings.
But she lost, falling to 5-16 on the season. Rutgers struck first with a pair of unearned runs in the third. After a leadoff single, Skylynne Ellazar's throwing error brought that runner all the way around and put Nicolette Anico third base. She would later score on a Melanie Slowinski sacrifice fly. The 2-0 score held until the top of the sixth, when a first-and-third steal prompted a defensive interference call against Corey Schwartz. Both runners moved up on the call. In the seventh, freshman catcher Allie Yoffee took Nation deep to center field, making it 4-0.
The Terps' offense couldn't get anything going against senior Dresden Maddox, who pitched a complete-game, four-hit shutout. Ellazar singled in the first and sixth, but Maryland went hitless in between. Even with four walks and a Rutgers error, they couldn't get a runner past second base until the seventh. A one-out Kylie Datil double and a two-out Sarah Calta single and steal put Terps on second and third, but Ellazar flew out to center to end it.
Sierra Maddox drilled a homer off of Madison Martin in the top of the second, but the Terps tied the game up in the third on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Kristina Dillard. Rutgers jumped in front in the fourth, capitalizing on another Ellazar error with no outs. Later in the frame, another run came in on a first-and-third steal, making it 4-1. In the fifth, Lindsey Schmeiser answered with her team-leading fifth homer of the season, a two-run shot that cut it to 4-3. But Maryland couldn't tie it up in the fifth or sixth, and Rutgers plated two insurance runs in the seventh.
Madison Martin surrendered six runs (three earned) in six innings of work, although the last two came in thanks to a double given up by Hannah Dewey. Maryland could only muster five hits in the first five innings against Shayla Sweeney, and Maddox shut the Terps down in the sixth and seventh.
Reaction
Errors suck. Skylynne Ellazar committed two, and five unearned runs scored as a result. Rutgers won the two games by a combined seven runs. Also, a run scored on a fielder's interference in the first game, and a first-and-third steal led to another in the nightcap. Kristina Dillard pegged two more runners on the bases, but the Scarlet Knights' aggressiveness helped just as much as it hurt.
Ellazar was 3-for-6 at the plate, accounting for a third of the Terps' hits on the day. Nine hits in 14 innings is less than ideal—in fact, the team posted a .191 batting average over the two games. Kristina Dillard's 0-for-5 showing was perhaps the most surprising, as she had gone 8-for-10 over the weekend at Penn State, but she still drove in one of the Terps' three runs (Schmeiser's homer accounted for the other two).
Brenna Nation and Madison Martin were impressive in the circle. The two redshirt juniors surrendered just four earned runs in 13 innings. But they didn't get the help they deserved, from either their defense or the hitters.
Both of these games were on BTN, so Maryland is now 0-3 on national TV. The team is also 2-30 when scoring less than five runs. And it's riding a five-game losing streak.
Next up, the Terps (11-32, 3-11 Big Ten) will head to Ann Arbor and face certain doom Michigan for a three-game weekend set. The Wolverines are ranked No. 2 in the country and hold a 34-4 overall record. The series starts Friday at 6:00 on the Big Ten Network.