What was a close game for Maryland softball through seven innings against UNC Greensboro on Sunday quickly turned on its head.
After the Spartans managed two runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game, the Terps came to the plate in the eighth needing to flip momentum.
Maryland did just that, exploding for 10 runs on seven hits in the inning to put the game out of reach and capture their first win in the Carolina Classic, defeating UNC Greensboro 17-9.
“Sometimes when you get rolling and you get hot like that offensively, it’s hard to stop that kind of freight train,” coach Julie Wright said. “I feel like that’s what we were. We just plowed through in that eighth inning.”
The teams were locked at 7-7 after the Spartans fought back, but all that changed at the start of extra innings.
Outfielder Shelby Younkin was placed on second, and it didn’t take long for her to find home plate after back-to-back singles from infielder Regan Kerr and catcher Gracie Voulgaris.
With a one-run lead and bases loaded, the stage was set for the Terps’ best hitter thus far in the season’s early stages, infielder Taylor Okada.
The freshman smashed a two-RBI single to left center, and soon enough, the Terps’ hitters were red hot. Outfielder Amanda Brashear’s single sent outfielder JoJo McRae home, and while Brashear was stealing second, Okada ran home on a UNC Greensboro throwing error.
Maryland held a comfortable 12-7 lead after Okada’s score, and the rest of the batting order put an exclamation point on the Terps win. Infielder Anna Kufta crushed a two-run homer, her fourth of the season, to keep the Terps’ scoring streak going.
With the bases loaded yet again for Maryland, a couple of sacrifice flyouts from Kerr and Voulgaris extended the Terps’ lead to 17-7 at the end of the inning.
“The floodgates just opened,” infielder Taylor Wilson said. “Everyone did their job. It was a very pass-the-bat mentality, and we just kept hitting for each other.”
The 17-run performance is Maryland’s best since an 18-8 win over Dartmouth in 2015.
Maryland pitcher Sydney Golden shutout the Spartans for five innings after relieving Sami Main, who came in for Victoria Galvan just four hitters into the first inning. The senior is now 7-3 this season, bouncing back from allowing six runs against North Carolina on Saturday.
The Terps gave up six unearned runs to UNC in their 11-5 loss on Saturday night but had no errors against the Spartans on Sunday.
Getting rid of those errors, according to Wright, was one of the biggest takeaways from Sunday’s win and will be one of the team’s main focuses going into next weekend.
“We were just not very good defensively yesterday,” Wright said. “And I loved the bounce back today to play errorless softball.”
Though Maryland hoped it would start off the weekend strong and use that momentum for the entire tournament, lackluster defense and a tough break against Florida Atlantic derailed the squad from finishing the weekend with a winning record.
The Terps lost 5-2 to George Washington on Friday, and what was shaping up to be a win over Florida Atlantic was ruled a no contest shortly after. The Terps were leading 11-2 over the Owls heading into the bottom of the fifth, when weather conditions prompted officials to call the game.
Against the Tar Heels, errors on defense early into the game held the Terps back, and though they managed to score five runs in the fourth inning, they had dug themselves too big of a hole to climb out of.
“I think every game, whether it’s a win or a loss, we can learn from,” Brashear said. “This group of girls is doing a really good job at learning from our mistakes, even from the wins, just finding that extra inch that we need to get better always.”
