UNIVERSITY PARK — After dropping the opener to Maryland on Friday night and taking a crushing, 11-inning, 12-11 loss on Saturday, May 3, the Penn State baseball team rallied on Sunday, May 4, for an 8-4 victory over the Terrapins.
Penn State fell behind early in Game 3 but put up five runs in the fourth and fifth innings and then added two insurance runs in the seventh to claim its 27th win of the season.
Nate Voss had two extra-base hits and a single with two RBIs for the Lions, while Derek Cease added two hits and two RBIs and Ryan Weingartner hit a two-run double.
Matt VanOstenbridge took the win on the mound for PSU with a perfect inning and Anthony Steele, Mason Horwat and Dimond Loosli cleaned up the last three innings.
Maryland led initially when Hollis Porter homered to right field in the first inning with a man aboard. Jesse Jaconski broke the ice for Penn State with an RBI single in the bottom of the first, but it wasn’t until the fourth inning that Penn State got rolling.
In that inning, Cease singled in Joe Jaconski to tie the score, and Weingartner followed with his two-run double that put the Lions ahead, 4-2.
The next inning, Voss hit a triple that knocked in Joe Jaconski and Cease singled up the middle, scoring Voss and padding the PSU lead to 6-2.
Maryland closed the gap in the seventh when Chris Hacopian hit a two-run home run, but Penn State answered immediately.
Voss doubled, his second RBI extra-base hit of the game, and drove in Jesse Jaconski before Cohl Mercado finished the Lions’ scoring with an RBI hit to left field.
With Penn State ahead now 8-4, Horwat and Loosli kept the Terps off the board, and Penn State had win No. 27 overall and its 13th in Big Ten play.
The day before, with Penn State trying to tie the series after Maryland’s 7-4 win in Game 1, the Lions scored 11 runs on 17 hits but came up agonizingly short in a 12-11, 11-inning loss.
Maryland’s Brayden Martin hit a home run in the top of the 11th inning that gave Maryland its one-run victory.
The two teams went into the ninth inning with the Lions ahead 9-7, but Maryland tied the game with two unearned runs and sent it into extra innings.
In the top of the 10th, Maryland jumped ahead, 11-9, when Hollis Porter hit a two-run homer to right field.
But Penn State’s Jack Porter answered in the bottom of the inning with a two-run shot that tied it and sent it into the 11th inning.
Martin led off the inning with his home run, but even though Penn State prevented any more damage, the Lions could not respond in the bottom of the inning and fell to their 14th loss.
Next up for Penn State will be a trip to Piscataway, NJ, to take on Rutgers on Friday, May 9, Saturday, May 10 and Sunday, May 11. It will be Penn State’s final away Big Ten series of the season before the Big Ten Tournament.
