College Baseball

Terps lose to WVU, wrapping up the college season for all of Maryland’s four-year schools

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The college baseball season in Maryland is officially over.

It actually ended Sunday afternoon in North Carolina, when the University of Maryland Terrapins lost, 8-5, to West Virginia University in the losers’ bracket of the Winston-Salem Regional.

Paced by three scoreless innings from freshman starter Tyler Blohm (Archbishop Spalding), a solo homer by outfielder Marty Costes (Archbishop Curley) and a two-run homer and RBI double by senior first baseman Brandon Gum, the Terps jumped out to a 4-0 lead heading into the sixth.

But the Terps couldn’t hold it, allowing eight unanswered runs and losing to the Mountaineers for the second time in three days.

It ended the Terps’ season at 38-23. That’s the third most wins in program history and the third time in four years Maryland has advanced to the NCAA tournament.

“Obviously, not the way we would want it to end,” Maryland head coach John Szefc said. “We won four games in the postseason, including (in) the Big Ten tournament, so although this regional really didn’t work out the way we would have wanted it to, I know our coaching staff will walk away from this thing feeling pretty positive about where things are going.”

The Terps became the last Maryland, four-year college baseball program standing on Saturday, when they beat the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 16-2, to knock UMBC out of the regional tournament.

Now, several Terps will be waiting to hear if their name is called in next week’s MLB first-player draft. Among those that should be selected are junior right-handed pitcher Brian Shaffer (North Harford), junior shortstop Kevin Smith and Costes (pictured above), a draft-eligible sophomore.

Dan Connolly

Dan Connolly has spent more than two decades as a print journalist in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Baltimore native and Calvert Hall graduate first covered the Orioles as a beat writer for the York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record in 2001 before becoming The Baltimore Sun’s national baseball writer/Orioles reporter in 2005. He has won multiple state and national writing awards, including several from the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013 he was named Maryland Co-Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. And in 2015, he authored his first book, "100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." He lives in York, with his wife, Karen, and three children, Alex, Annie, and Grace.