Maryland Terrapins Crush Richmond 19 Runs in Dominant Home Blowout

Paul Jones II's 430-foot center-field blast, measured at 110 miles per hour off the bat, was just one of four home runs Maryland launched Tuesday as the Terrapins ended a six-game losing streak by mercy-ruling Richmond 19-4 in seven innings at Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium in College Park.

Maryland scored in each of the first six innings, piling up 17 hits and forcing Richmond to cycle through nine pitchers by the sixth. Sophomore second baseman Jackson Sirois hit two home runs and drove in four runs; Jones II, a sophomore first baseman, finished with a career-best five RBIs to lead a lineup in which six different Terrapins delivered multiple RBI. Junior Brayden Martin set the tone early with a perfectly placed bunt to open Maryland's half of the first, then kept getting on base all afternoon, finishing 4-for-5 with a walk to reach base all five times he came to the plate.

"When I bunted, I thought it was foul," Martin said. "That was probably one of the best bunts I've done so far."

The five-run first inning erased Richmond's early 1-0 lead. Back-to-back sacrifice flies from Jones II and Rylen Stockton put Maryland in front, then Sirois followed a walk to Bud Coombs with a two-run home run to make it 5-1. A three-run homer in the second, a six-run fourth and Sirois' second blast in the sixth pushed the margin to 15 and triggered the run rule. Catcher Devin Russell added a home run as well. On the mound, right-hander Nic Morlang punched out four batters, three of them in the first inning. Andrew Koshy earned the win to improve to 2-0, and Logan Hastings worked a scoreless seventh to close it out.

The victory arrived at a useful moment. Maryland had beaten No. 12 USC the previous Saturday, and Tuesday's rout of a Richmond squad that entered at 14-14 gave the Terps back-to-back wins headed into a Big Ten road series at Ohio State. Home games at Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium, where Tuesday's 4 p.m. first pitch was free to all fans under 81-degree sunshine and drew 942, remain one of the more accessible outings in College Park; the full spring schedule is listed on the University of Maryland Athletics website.

Martin credited a sharper collective mentality as the difference from the first meeting on March 17, when Richmond won 7-5 at Pitt Field. "I thought we were just way more aggressive," he said. "Last game we didn't come out and put the pressure on them and today we did that and it won us the game."

At 13-15 overall and 2-7 in Big Ten play, the Terps have little margin for error in the conference schedule remaining. But six multi-RBI contributors in one lineup, 17 hits against a team that beat them two weeks ago, and a mercy rule that ended things in seven innings is the kind of statement that suggests the offense is rounding into form at the right time.