Maryland baseball hangs on for 4-3 midweek victory over VCU

RICHMOND, Va. — In a close nip-and-tuck affair, Maryland baseball pulled ahead in the late innings to edge VCU 4-3 on Tuesday.

Maxwell Costes and AJ Lee delivered RBI knocks with two outs. Randy Bednar had two hits, as did Caleb Walls and Ben Cowles. The Terps used a combination of nine pitchers in the game, with Drew Wilden getting the start and Nick Turnbull eventually earning the win.

The Terps took a quick lead in the first. Walls lined a single to center and came home when Bednar smashed a double off of the left-center field wall. That hit increased Bednar’s hitting streak to seven games. But the Rams got the run right back in their half of the first on a single, hit-by-pitch, double steal and RBI groundout.

VCU pushed a run across off Daniel O’Connor in the third. A leadoff double just beyond a leaping Chris Alleyne put the Rams in scoring position. A two-out single up the middle by Paul Witt made it 2-1 in favor of VCU.

Maryland tied it up in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Taylor Wright. The Terps then took the lead two innings later. With a runner on first and two outs, Justin Vought was hit by a pitch. Costes, the reigning Big Ten Player and Freshman of the Week, made the Rams pay by lining an RBI single to left.

The Terps got an important insurance run in the eighth inning. Wright led off with a four-pitch walk, and one out later advanced to second on a fielder’s choice. Pineiro struck out, but a high pitch that got by the catcher to put Pineiro on base and runners on the corners. With two away, Lee singled past the second baseman to give the Terps an insurance run.

John Murphy came in the bottom of the ninth to close out the game, but it wasn’t easy. After fighting off some pitches, Hogan Brown hit an opposite-field double to lead things off. Brown went to third on a flyout to right, and came home on an infield single by Brett Norwood. A wild pitch moved the tying run into scoring position, and a hit batsman put the winning run aboard. But “The Sherriff” retired the next two hitters to earn his third save of the year.

Turnbull pitched 1.2 hitless innings between the sixth and eighth in his winning performance, and Maryland won its fifth straight to move to 5-2. The Terps visit Louisiana-Lafayette this weekend.