After losing this past weekend’s conference series to Oregon, Maryland made the sport look easy when it faced Mount St. Mary’s on Tuesday. 

With wind and rain inconsistently falling throughout the game, Maryland used the elements to its advantage in the early going. The Terps mashed three home runs in the first four innings to establish a comfortable lead by the middle frames.

In the fifth, Mount St. Mary got its first run on the board with a homer. But Maryland took the Mountaineers’ response in stride, adding four more runs in the eighth en route to a 10-3 win at ET Straw Family Stadium. 

The Terps (17-21, 4-11 Big Ten) took an early and significant lead in the first inning. Hollis Porter matched Alex Calarco for Maryland’s team lead in home runs by launching a 3-run homer with Brayden Martin and Chris Hacopian on the bases.  

With a 3-0 lead entering the bottom of the first, right-handed pitcher Brayden Ryan took the mound with confidence in his fourth start of the season. 

He blitzed through a 1-2-3 first inning, hastily bringing the offense back to the dish for the second. In that ensuing frame, centerfielder Elijah Lambros hit the second home run of the game to extend Maryland’s lead to four. 

The Terps’ scoring streak continued in the third.

Calarco scored on a sacrifice fly by Aden Hill; that being the Terps’ fifth run in just three innings, Mountaineers (14-21, 7-8 MAAC) starter Tommy Moore was essentially done at that point. He faced one more batter before being replaced by reliever Max McCrary.

McCary was able to throw off some of Maryland’s hitters with his abnormal sidearm motion. But the righty’s deception evidently had a much slighter impact on the left-handed hitting Martin. The sophomore infielder hit his first homer of the season on a high-arcing flyball to right field. 

By the end of the fourth inning, Maryland had already slugged three homers for a commanding 6-0 lead. 

Through the first four innings, Ryan had mostly worked without significant basepath traffic, often retiring the first Mountaineer hitter he faced in an inning. This seemingly small advantage kickstarted Ryan into a rhythm during the early frames.

But the game’s trends quickly turned around in the fifth. For the first time on Tuesday, Maryland’s offense couldn’t get anything on the board in the inning. 

After breaking Maryland’s scoring streak, the Mountaineers got themselves off the deck with a solo homer over the scoreboard.

Maryland’s offense stagnated over the next few innings, but Ryan also held the Mountaineers to their lone run in what ended up being his best outing of the year. The redshirt sophomore earned the win in his seven-inning performance. 

The Terps finally broke their three-inning scoreless drought in the eighth, when Jacob Orr hit Maryland’s fourth homer of the day. 

Jacob Hauk and Lambros were on base when Eddie Hacopian capped off Maryland’s emphatic offensive day with a 3-run homer. That pushed Maryland’s lead to 10-1, essentially sealing victory. 

All but one of Maryland’s 10 runs came across to score on its five home runs.

The Mountaineers added homers in both the eighth and ninth innings, for their last two of the game. But those scores were merely a consolation.

In the end, Maryland took the well-deserved win and secured a season sweep over Mount St. Mary’s in Tuesday’s midweek road win.

The Terps travel to Bloomington on Friday to face Indiana for a conference weekend series. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. in the series opener, with Nate Schwartz on the call for MBN.