Maryland baseball defeats VCU 10-5

Maryland baseball erased a two-game losing streak with a big offensive onslaught on Tuesday, defeating VCU 10-5 in College Park.

The Terps’ offense clicked well, scoring 10 runs on 17 hits. Five players had multi-hit games, two players had multi-run scoring games and three had multi-RBI games. Maryland hit two home runs on the day. Randy Bednar led the Terps at the plate, going 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBIs. AJ Lee went 2-for-4 with a run scored, a home run and two RBIs. Ben Cowles arguably had his best game of the year, going 3-for-4 with three runs scored and a home run.

Tyler Blohm was back on the mound for the Terps (20-21), his first start since late February, and his day was limited due to a pitch count. However, in his short outing, he threw the ball hard and was accurate, striking out three on 34 pitches, allowing two hits and a home run.

The bullpen started out rough, as Daniel O’Connor gave up three runs in just 0.1 innings, but Sean Fisher backed him up, giving up one hit in 2.2 innings. Drew Wilden and Andrew Vail also threw well out of the pen, holding the Rams (28-13) to two hits and one earned run over three innings.

VCU started off the scoring in the first, as Brent Norwood led off the game with a solo home run on the second pitch of the game. Maryland tied the game up in the bottom half, as Maxwell Costes singled home Bednar.

In the second, the Terps put up a four-spot. Ben Irvine drove in his first run of the season on an RBI groundout. Bednar followed two batters later with a two-run single to give Maryland a 4-1 lead. Taylor Wright then doubled home Bednar to take a 5-1 lead.

VCU responded with three in the third, starting off with a Zac Ching RBI double. Paul Witt came up next, driving in one on a groundout to AJ Lee, who made a great play to get Witt out at first. Two batters later, Hogan Brown cut the deficit to 5-4 with an RBI single.

Maryland came back with three in the fourth. Lee hit a long solo home run to left-center field, and Josh Maguire drove in Wright and Bednar with a two-run single to take an 8-4 lead. Ben Cowles extended the lead to 9-4 in the fifth with a solo home run almost to the same spot in left-center.

The Rams clawed back in the seventh with a run. Liam Hibbits singled home Witt as VCU cut into the lead at 9-5. Immediately, Maryland responded with a run in the bottom half. Ben Cowles led off the inning with a double off the batter’s eye, advancing to third on a Ben Irvine groundout and scoring on a Lee single to take a 10-5 lead.

John Murphy finished off VCU in the ninth, walking one and striking out two.

Maryland travels to Penn State this weekend for an important conference series, as the Terps look to improve on their 6-6 conference record and T-7 position in the Big Ten standings.