Donning the iconic No. 3 on the back of his jersey, Maryland senior Eddie Hacopian needed to have a ‘captain’s moment’ with his team trailing 8-6 against No. 12 Wake Forest in the ninth inning. Brayden Martin stood on first base with two outs as Hacopian went down to his final strike.

The senior infielder punched a Baltimore-chop ground ball back to Demon Deacon closer Josh Gunther, who fielded and fired to first base, but his throw was a fraction too late. Hacopian had legged out the high chopper — a seemingly insignificant moment on its own but one that loomed extremely large in Saturday night’s result.

Maryland’s next three batters — Alex Calarco, Hollis Porter, and Jacob Orr — all delivered two-out RBI singles to right field, giving Maryland a miraculous lead. After closing out Saturday’s first game against Princeton, senior Andrew Johnson returned to the mound and pitched on a knife’s edge in the bottom of the ninth.

The Demon Deacons moved runners to second and third with one out following a sacrifice bunt. Facing the top of Wake Forest’s lineup, Johnson got a pair of harmless popouts to remarkably secure a 9-8 victory in true “Cardiac Terps” fashion at David F. Couch Ballpark.

The one-run comeback win epitomized Maryland (6-4) baseball’s three pillars on an afternoon when the Terps lost their starting pitcher to an early injury and were playing without sophomore superstar Chris Hacopian.          

Maryland’s electric offense faced an intriguing challenge in the form of Wake Forest (9-2) starter Matthew Dallas. The Tennessee transfer entered Saturday’s matchup having allowed just two total hits in his first two starts of the season. 

The Terps more than doubled Dallas’ hits allowed in just the first half inning.

Martin led off the game with a single. Hitting in the three-hole, Calarco moved Martin to third with a double that landed on the white paint of the left-field foul line.

With two gone in the top half of the first, Orr dunked a base hit into right field. That knock plated Martin and Calarco. 

In continuation of the two-out rally, Aden Hill and Elijah Lambros followed suit with an RBI double and a run-scoring single respectively. 

Dallas eventually escaped the inning, but not before surrendering five hits — three with two outs — and four runs (three of which were earned). His outing would later end in the third.

Maryland starter Joey McMannis had a chance to pitch comfortably with the significant run support. The sophomore right-hander faced traffic in his first two innings but worked around it in both instances. He induced four groundouts and a pair of strikeouts during the early stretch.

Hill rewarded McMannis with an RBI double in the top of the third, but the Maryland starter never reaped the benefit of that extra run.

McMannis seemingly tweaked something in his lower back while tossing his warm-up pitches ahead of the bottom of the third inning. The sophomore exited after a visit from Maryland’s trainers.

With McMannis’ sudden departure, Brayden Ryan had to rush through his warm-up routine ahead of time, which seemed to affect the redshirt sophomore reliever. 

Ryan walked the first three batters he faced before Jack Winnay muscled a jam-shot single into center field. The knock plated two Demon Deacons and gave five-hole hitter Kade Lewis an opportunity to tie the game — a chance he took advantage of. 

Lewis launched — and admired — a towering 403-foot home run into the shrubs beyond the right-centerfield wall. That blast knocked Ryan out of the game after failing to record an out. 

Wake Forest transfer Andrew Koshy took over. 

Koshy got two quick outs against his former team, but couldn’t escape the frame unscathed. He delivered a 1-0 offering that ran down and in — directly into the swing path of Jimmy Keenan. The Demon Deacon catcher slugged the pitch over the left field fence for a go-ahead home run. 

Maryland first baseman Hollis Porter quickly leveled the score at 6-6, when he lifted a majestic home run to right center field. Porter’s blast conjured up a sense of momentum for the Terps when they seemingly had none, but that was short-lived.

Lewis punched a two-out single to left field in the bottom of the fourth inning. That knock scored junior Marek Houston, who delivered another run for the Demon Deacons with a hit-and-run RBI double in the following inning. 

Houston’s run-scoring extra-base hit gave Wake Forest an 8-6 lead after five innings. Following its scorching start, Maryland’s offense stagnated in the middle-late innings. 

Hard-throwing Wake Forest reliever Haiden Leffew escaped a fifth-inning jam, before striking out the side in the following frame. Fellow left-handed reliever Zach Johnston took over midway through the seventh and got his team out of a two-on, one-out predicament. 

Calarco and Porter quickly put Johnston in another precarious spot by knocking consecutive base hits to lead off the eighth inning. With the pair of Terps standing on first and second, Orr yanked an outside offering to deep left field. 

Orr’s long fly ball looked like a no-doubt, go-ahead home run off the bat — so much so that Johnston put both hands on his head as he helplessly watched it sail closer to the fence. But left fielder Javar Williams secured the flyout with his back against the wall. 

Johnston struck out the next two batters to strand Calarco and Porter. 

Reliever Ryan Van Buren kept Maryland in the game with four innings of terrific relief. He allowed just one run — on Houston’s RBI double — which was unearned. His shutdown performance kept a firing Demon Deacons lineup in check, setting up the Terps for their improbable ninth-inning comeback.

After defeating Princeton twice, the Terps’ 9-8 victory over Wake Forest pushes them to a perfect 3-0 this weekend.

Maryland faces the Demon Deacons once more in Sunday’s weekend finale at 1 p.m. Nate Schwartz will once again be on the call for MBN, for one final time from Winston-Salem.