There truly is nothing quite like “Midweek Madness.” 

After giving up four home runs in the first four innings of Wednesday night’s midweek against USC Upstate (30-19, 14-7), Maryland (32-18, 10-11) found itself in a daunting 8-0 hole. Then seemingly out of thin air, the Terps offense found a spark. 

Devin Russell and Chris Hacopian woke the bats up with a pair of home runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, before pinch-hitter Ben Nardi turned the game on its head with a two-run blast that made the score 8-5 after six frames. 

“Mental toughness is Devin Russell getting a ball called a strike on him and then hitting a homer with two strikes,” said Maryland head coach Matt Swope. “Mental toughness is Nardi … getting a big two-run homer when he hasn’t played in [a] month.”

Jacob Orr got another run back with an RBI single in the seventh, before captain Kevin Keister called his own number by blasting a 3-run homer over the center field fence. The electric moment gave Maryland a 9-8 lead, as the Terps completed an improbable comeback in just three innings.

“Me and Jacob have been struggling a little bit, and he told me [before his at-bat] …, ‘If I get a hit here, then you’re gonna get a hit here,’ and after I saw his fall I had a lot of confidence,” said Keister, who added that go-ahead homer was one of the biggest hits of his Maryland career.

The Terps weren’t done either, because after starting the comeback in the fifth, Russell launched a two-run moonshot over the batter’s eye in dead center to provide Maryland with some much-needed insurance.

“The whole season, no matter how far we’re down, our team always has good energy,” said Russell.

From there, Kenny Lippman and Logan Berrier were entrusted to preserve the lead, and they did just that—with the help of a few spectacular plays from Eddie Hacopian at first base—shutting down the Spartans’ offense in the final two innings to close the door on a ridiculous 11-8 comeback victory over USC Upstate.  

Making his first start of the season was lefty Trystan Sarcone. The graduate student’s most recent outing had come against Nebraska on April 19, and after a sharp first inning, Sarcone ran into some trouble with the biggest bats in the Spartans order.

USC Upstate’s Koby Kropf entered play on Wednesday night with a Big South-leading 18 home runs on the season. On just the second pitch of the top of the second, Kropf added to that tally by launching a majestic blast over the left-center field fence. 

Then three pitches later, five-hole hitter Troy Hamilton made it back-to-back jacks with another light tower blast to left.

Sarcone would eventually get through the rest of the inning without yielding any more runs, but that was all he saw on Wednesday evening. The two second-inning homers were the only hits that Sarcone gave up. 

Nate Haberthier took over for Sarcone to start the top of the third, and the righty appeared to be well on his way to a clean frame before the wheel completely fell off with two outs. 

A seemingly harmless two-out base hit from Grant Sherrod turned into a run after a walk and an RBI double from Hamilton. 

While Hamilton’s hit was ruled as such, it seemed that center fielder Elijah Lambros slightly misjudged the frozen rope and allowed the ball to sail over his head. Nardi replaced Lambros in the order, after Lambros’ at-bat in the bottom of the third.  

The bleeding only worsened from there. Haberthier got ahead of just about every batter he faced, but just couldn’t find a strikeout pitch to escape the inning. 

Following the Hamilton double, the Spartans added two more base-hits to drive in three more runs in the third. Despite getting outs from the first two batters in the inning, Haberthier was unable to finish the frame.

On the other side of the ball, the Terps offense simply couldn’t find an answer against Upstate’s Braden Consaul. 

Through his first four innings of work, Consaul surrendered three hits, all of which were singles and came in different innings. Maryland’s inability to string together multiple hits in an inning against Consaul seemed to doom any hope the Terps had of cutting into the lofty deficit. 

The Spartans kept adding on, with solo blasts in the fourth and fifth innings, giving themselves an 8-0 lead after four and a half innings. But somehow, the Terps weren’t phased. 

By scoring 11 unanswered runs in just three innings, the Terps sparked what could be one of their most crucial victories of the season, if they’re able to make the NCAA Tournament.

“That’s one of the greatest comebacks I’ve ever been a part of in my career,” said Swope, who also described his team’s five-homer night as, “a little bit of vintage Terps.”

After this wild Wednesday night at The Bob, Maryland will be back on the road this weekend, as they travel up to Massachusetts for a non-conference series against Boston College.