Down to its final few outs on Tuesday night, Maryland once again personified its “Cardiac Terps” nickname against No. 23 Virginia. 

Sophomore Brayden Martin punched a base hit through the 5-6 hole, starting a rally with one out. Eddie Hacopian then walked before his brother Chris laced an RBI double down the right-field line. An RBI groundout plated Eddie before a wild pitch brought Chris across, tying the game at six. But ironically, another wild pitch soon spelled Maryland’s defeat. 

With two outs in the bottom of the frame, lefty Omar Melendez spiked a pitch in front of home plate. The ball deflected off of catcher Alex Calarco, allowing Henry Godbout to score the game-winning run.

Melendez looked on in frustration, as the Cavaliers stormed out of their dugout at Virginia Credit Union Stadium in Fredericksburg. The 7-6 defeat sunk Maryland (8-8) back to the .500 mark, now 16 games into the 2025 campaign.

“I’m proud of the way the guys built it up in the ninth and tied it up off their guy,” Swope said. “The story of the game was just trying to get that shutdown inning after we score.”

Virginia (10-5) had made a habit of bullpen-game midweeks in 2025. The Cavaliers unsurprisingly stuck with that strategy but did so with unpredicted personnel. 

Junior Evan Blanco played an opener role in both of Virginia’s prior midweeks. He wouldn’t feature until the fourth inning on Tuesday though, as left-hander Bradley Hodges took the mound for the first two frames.

Making his first start back from Tommy John surgery last season, Hodges efficiently kept the Terps off of the board in his brief time on the bump. The junior retired Maryland in order to start the evening, before striking out the side in the second inning. 

Designated hitter Michael Iannazzo pulled the Terps off the deck with a four-pitch walk to lead off the third. That free pass chased Hodges in favor of Alex Markus, one of the Cavaliers’ four relievers who hadn’t allowed a run on the season entering Tuesday.

Elijah Lambros quickly reduced that Cavalier cohort to just three, when he laced Maryland’s first hit of the evening into the left-center field gap. 

Center fielder Aidan Teel bobbled the ball while trying to scoop it with his glove, giving Iannazzo enough time to score as Lambros slid into third with an RBI extra-base hit.

Maryland, with the top of its order due up and nobody out in the third, seemed destined to plate Lambros as well. But Markus induced an infield popout from Brayden Martin, before striking out both Hacopian brothers swinging on pitches considerably wide of the strike zone. 

Swinging punchouts largely hindered Maryland’s offensive production in the game’s early stages. Terps hitters struck out swinging eight times through the first four innings.

“The shadows were immense early on, so some of that ticks up the heater,” Swope said.

Maryland starter Jake Yeager got the majority of his outs in the opposite fashion, striking out just one through five innings of work. But the freshman consistently worked around traffic in those frames. 

Yeager kept the scoreboard clean through the first three innings before Virginia eventually broke through in the fourth. 

Teel and Harrison Didawick led off the frame with consecutive singles. After a sacrifice bunt moved both into scoring position, Yeager got the next batter to ground into a 3-2 putout as Calarco firmly tagged Teel in front of the plate.

With two outs and runners at the corners, Virginia took a classic high school baseball approach. 

Cavaliers head coach Brian O’Connor initiated a play that saw James Nunnallee — his runner on first — take off for second. Nunnallee had second base without a throw but instead stopped halfway to draw a throw and force a rundown.

Nunnallee stayed hung up just long enough to allow Didawick — the runner at third — to score Virginia’s first run of the evening. 

With the contest level at one, the Terps responded in a lengthy top of the sixth. 

Maryland loaded the bases with one out, setting up Jacob Orr for a go-ahead sacrifice fly.

First baseman Hollis Porter then added a third run to the tally by dunking a single into left field. Didaqick nearly made a sprawling grab to erase the run, but the ball popped out of his glove as soon as his right wrist hit the turf. 

The Terps didn’t get another run in the inning, but Iannazzo got hit in the face with a pitch leading to an extended delay. The sophomore ultimately exited the game under his own power.

Following the long top half of the inning, Virginia took the lead behind an equally chaotic bottom of the sixth. 

Yeager walked the first two batters and was quickly hooked for Cristofer Cespedes. With Maryland’s infield set in bunt defense, both Cavalier base runners easily swiped second and third on a double steal. 

Cespedes induced a grounder to Chris Hacopian with his very next pitch, but the sophomore bobbled the ball as a run crossed the dish. 

Maryland’s freshman struck out the ensuing hitter but with left-handed hitting Eric Becker due up, Swope played the matchup by bringing in lefty Andrew Johnson.

The move wasn’t successful.

Becker lined a Johnson offering into center, plating a pair of runs to give Virginia a 4-3 lead. 

Pinch-hitting in the bottom of the eighth inning, junior Luke Hanson added two more runs to Virginia’s lead by mashing a homer onto the left-field concourse.

“[Hansen’s] really been struggling for them, and he was really good for them last year,” Swope said. “But again … I talk about moments all the time — most of these situations right now, we’re just not winning the moment.”         

Maryland seemingly had little chance of posting a comeback after Hanson’s emphatic blast. The Terps, as is common, displayed tremendous fight in their three-run ninth inning, but the comeback only delayed Tuesday’s brutal defeat by an extra half inning.

The Dirty Terps face an immediate turnaround, hosting Mount Saint Mary’s at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Nate Schwartz and Benji Kaufman will be on the headset for MBN.