As coach Laura Watten stood on the field after a doubleheader at Robert E. Taylor Stadium on Sunday, many of the few words she could find described what her Terrapin softball team didn’t do in its 2-1 loss to NC State.
“We didn’t come through with hits that we needed,” Watten said. “We didn’t execute. We didn’t play at our level. We just didn’t make the things happen that need to happen.”
Despite winning the first game of the doubleheader,the Terps fell in the nightcap for the 13th time overall and the 10th time this season by two runs or fewer.
“We needed some clutch hits,” Watten said. “We had runners in scoring position. Really, that’s it.”
The Terps are getting hits, however. Outfielder Vangie Galindo and infielder Bree Hanafin rank third and fourth in the ACC with batting averages of .400 and .388, respectively, while the Terps’ team average of .283 ranks fourth.
But Sunday, when the Terps collected 14 hits in two games but managed to score only four runs, the offense again seemed to sputter when it really counted. The Terps have stranded a conference-high 293 runners on base, including 15 against NC State, while scoring 167 runs, second to last in the ACC.
“We just had situations where we needed some key hits and just didn’t do it,” Watten said.
The Terps have shown a knack for the big play on occasion this season. They most notably delivered in a series sweep of Boston College earlier this month, and the team also recorded four extra-inning victories in its early-season tournaments.
With a nonconference opponent in Binghamton visiting College Park tonight for a doubleheader, the Terps have an opportunity to right the wrongs of Sunday’s loss. And despite the Bearcats’ (17-12) low profile out of the America East, the Terps (28-13) are not in a position to let up.
Last season, the Terps dropped nonconference games late in the season to Towson and Longwood, losses that put the team’s postseason hopes on life support.
“Every game matters,” pitcher Kerry Hickey said. “If we go out there and lay back and we lose one or two against Binghamton, that could really affect our whole outcome of the season. We really got to stay focused and play our game.”
The Terps have struggled to break into the polls this season and saw their computer-determined ranking drop despite the sweep of Boston College, so a loss to a team like Binghamton could devastate their NCAA Tournament dreams.
And while two wins tonight would do everything but hurt their postseason chances, the matchup more so provides the Terps an opportunity to gain momentum heading into the rest of their ACC schedule. The Terps have been largely successful in taking advantage of midweek matchups, using wins against lesser opponents as springboards to 13- and six-game winning streaks.
Even with the clutch hitting that made those streaks possible lacking in Sunday’s loss to NC State, the Terps have an idea of what they are capable of doing tonight and in the coming weeks.
“If anything,” Galindo said, “we just got to know where we came from and go at it like we know we can.”
dgallen@umdbk.com
