The Dirty Terps are moving on to the winner’s bracket in the Winston-Salem regional.
After winning the Big Ten last Sunday in Omaha, the Terps were assigned to travel down to North Carolina and take on the Northeastern Huskies in the first round.
The Terps used excellent performances by players on both sides of the ball to defeat Northeastern 7-2, avenging their loss to the Huskies back on May 9. With the victory, the Terps move on to the next round, set to play the victor between Wake Forest and George Mason on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Just as always, Maryland’s bats showed up when they were needed. After some struggles from the top of the lineup last week in Omaha, the first five batters stepped up and delivered all of Maryland’s seven hits and seven runs.
Nick Lorusso once again stole the show. He got Maryland’s day on offense started early with a first inning blast, earning his 100th RBI of the season in style. With that blast, he became the first player in college baseball since 2003 to record 100 or more RBIs in a single season.
He finished his day three-for-four with that home run and a triple, just a double shy of Maryland’s first cycle since 2001. The nation’s leader in RBIs also knocked in another run later in the game, moving up him to 101 on the season.
Eddie Hacopian continued to stay hot as well, sending another shot over the fence in the second inning and recording two RBIs of his own. Ian Petrutz would also record two RBIs on two deep sacrifice flies.
However, the real story of the day was Jason Savacool. The junior turned in six innings of two run ball, where he would only allow five hits and two walks to seven strikeouts. His dominance on the mound, followed up by two scoreless innings from Kenny Lippman out of the bullpen, allowed the Terps to control things early and never look back.
Those two’s dominance also allowed skipper Rob Vaughn to conserve other bullpen arms, namely Nigel Belgrave and David Falco Jr. for later games in the regional.
Wake Forest and George Mason will battle it out on Friday at 7 p.m., while the Terps wait patiently to see who they’ll have to play next to keep their championship aspirations alive.