Four days after accomplishing a feat Mike Shawaryn called “a lifelong dream,” he tasted defeat for the first time as a starter in 2015.

The Terrapins baseball right-hander was riding a high after accepting an invitation to join the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this summer on April 27, and he had a 10-0 record on the hill.

But Shawaryn, who had been nearly untouchable for most of the season, struggled to find his form on the mound May 1 in College Park. He surrendered five runs on nine hits over 5.2 innings against Indiana.

As a result, the Hoosiers handed Shawaryn his first blemish of the year, more than two and a half months into the season. It didn’t sit well with him, either.

“I hate losing,” Shawaryn said. “I hate losing more than I like winning. We win as a team, and we lose as a team — there are eight guys out there making plays for me on every pitch.”

He didn’t let the loss mar his confidence, though. Shawaryn bounced back with a one-run gem over seven innings the following Friday against Ohio State to tie his own single-reason record for wins, which he set as a freshman.

Shawaryn went on to break the program record with 13 victories and set a new career-high mark for the Terps at 24 wins. His 138 strikeouts in 2015 set a new single-season record. Plus, he led the Big Ten in both categories.

Now, the Terps ace will look to carry his dominance to the national level when he is one of 24 players competing for Team USA at various North Carolina venues from Saturday to July 8. He is just the second Terps baseball player to ever to don the Team USA uniform after right-hander Pete Sinopoli did in the 1979 Pan American games.

Shawaryn said he is scheduled to pitch three innings Monday night against Chinese Taipei in his debut.

“It’s going to be really fun wearing ‘USA’ across the chest,” Shawaryn said, “and [to] go out and represent the country while seeing players from other countries play.”

BACKYARD WIFFLEBALL

Shawaryn grew up playing in the backyard with whatever ball he could get his hands on. After the Carneys Point, New Jersey, native would return home from elementary school, he would spend the rest of the afternoon and evening playing sports outdoors.

Mike Shawaryn

When it wasn’t baseball, it was football or basketball.

“I thought he was probably going to be a football player,” said Shawaryn’s father Michael, who played football in college. “He was a big baby when he was born.”

His parents never pressured him into a particular sport, though. And the younger Shawaryn soon developed a passion for tossing a wiffleball in the backyard. He would set up a lawn chair to serve as his strike zone, and then he would zip pitch after pitch toward the chair.

“Sometimes I would practice all by myself,” Shawaryn said. “I would practice my slider, curve and any other weird grips to see if it got any more movement on it.”

Kaitlynn Shawaryn, his sister, noticed his love for baseball from an early age.

“We were big outdoor kids, so [Mike] probably liked baseball since he could start to walk,” Kaitlynn said of her brother.

And the little kid tossing the plastic ball at a helpless lawn chair slowly emerged into a force on the mound. He started playing organized baseball for the Lapp’s Dutch Market team in the PG-CP-PED (Penns Grove, Carneys Point, Pedricktown) Little League at the Carneys Point Recreation Complex.

But no one knew then that one of college baseball’s future stars was developing right before their eyes.

THE UNICORN

Mike Shawaryn was a decision away from fulfilling many teenagers’ dream. After he had impressed scouts at the 2012 WWBA World Championship and posted a 0.63 ERA his senior year, the Kansas City Royals selected him with the 954th pick in the 32nd round of the 2013 MLB draft.

Shawaryn could’ve made that dream so few ever achieve become a reality. He had a different plan, though.

“[My parents] told me, ‘If you do go [professional], you want to go for the right number,’” Shawaryn said. “‘You don’t want to just go for the Royals hat.’”

At the time, Mike Rucci was in his first year as the head coach of Gloucester Catholic high school. He called all of Shawaryn’s Division I offers “unbelievable” and admitted it was a bit overwhelming. It could’ve been for Shawaryn, too, but the teenager didn’t seem fazed by the spotlight.

“He handled it like [the] true professional kid that he is,” Rucci said.

Shawaryn’s parents helped in the process, but similar to not pushing him toward a certain sport when he was younger, they left picking a college in his hands.

“Ultimately it was his decision,” Shawaryn’s father said. “We visited colleges, and I always told him ‘Look, pick the school that, if you decide to stop playing baseball, you feel comfortable staying there and finishing your education.’

“Another thing we told him was, ‘Can you see yourself having fun with this team if they are losing all the time?’”

So Shawaryn trimmed his list down to two schools: Maryland and Duke. At some point after spring break of his senior year, he had a conversation with his sister, and she sensed he would eventually play in College Park.

The work Terps head coach John Szefc and associate head coach Jim Belanger put in during the recruiting process was vital. Szefc traveled to the teen’s home in Carneys Point, and the coach discussed the importance being drafted in the first couple rounds has on his chances of ultimately making the big leagues.

“[Szefc] brought up points that I never really thought about,” Shawaryn said.

And while it seemed like he would commit to the Terps, days continued to go by as he hadn’t made a decision. It reached a point when Belanger was asking himself: “Is this kid even real?”

When Shawaryn finally committed, it was so late that the team felt he was as elusive as a mythical equine creature, so they hung a unicorn mask at Belanger’s locker.

From that moment on, Shawaryn was dubbed “The Unicorn.”

“I saw a unicorn mask at a store and wanted to get it to wear at games,” Kaitlynn Shawaryn said, “but I didn’t want to wear it. Not because it’s superstitious — it’s repetitious.”

EMERGING FROM STINNETT’S SHADOW

Mike Shawaryn didn’t know what to expect in his first year in College Park. He wasn’t sure what capacity the Terps would use him, but they immediately gave him an opportunity to start.

In the Terps’ second game of the 2014 season, a road contest at then-No. 20 Florida, Shawaryn took the hill. The righty hurled 5.2 innings while allowing just one earned run to set the tone for a stellar first season.

He went on to finish his first year with an 11-4 record, tossing 92.1 innings with a 3.12 ERA. The accolades rolled in, too, including being named to the 2014 Baseball America Freshman All-America team, Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American Team and a first team Freshman All-American selection by the NCBWA.

Mike Shawaryn

While he has since taken over as the Terps ace, stepping onto the rubber each Friday night against the other team’s top arm, Shawaryn had the opportunity as a freshman to learn from one of the top college pitchers, Jake Stinnett.

“Pitching behind Stinnett was probably the biggest [reason for my success],” Shawaryn said.

As a senior in 2014, Stinnett held an 8-6 record with a 2.67 ERA and 132 strikeouts, and he led the team to its first NCAA tournament since 1971.

“He showed me the ins and outs of what needs to be done,” Shawaryn said. “He was an ace, and he worked like an ace. … Just being able to go out Friday night and see him pitch really just inspired me to become a better baseball player.”

The Chicago Cubs later drafted Stinnett in the 2014 MLB draft in the 2nd round with the 45th overall pick. He currently pitches for the High-A level South Bend Cubs.

With Shawaryn taking over his former role on the Terps as he looks to impress in the minors, Stinnett found Shawaryn reaching out for advice and gave the younger pitcher a piece of advice that Shawaryn said has stuck with him since.

“He said, ‘You got to be the best Mike Shawaryn you can be. You can’t be me; you can’t be [New York Mets ace] Matt Harvey.’” Shawaryn recalled Stinnett saying. “That’s really stuck out to me this season, just not trying to be someone I’m not. When I get on the mound, I got to be the best Mike Shawaryn I can be.”

The mindset has already helped him emerge from the shadows of his predecessor, setting program records and making the Team USA team as a sophomore. And as he looks to follow Stinnett into the draft when he becomes eligible next season, some experts pin Shawaryn as potentially an even higher draft selection.

“He’s a likely first rounder and could go very high,” said Mike Ferrin, a co-host of Power Alley of MLB Network Radio and SiriusXM College Baseball.

“It’s hard to envision him not going in to the top 10 overall picks,” said Patrick Ebert, the managing editor for Perfect Game, an organization that scouts top baseball talents. “He may even be a candidate to go No. 1 overall based on his progression, assuming he continues to get better.”

Shawaryn doesn’t let his mind wander into the future, though. He knows getting caught up in the hype and projections won’t do him any good.

Plus, he’s already had that feeling of being drafted for the first time. But he opted to attend school and improve his stock. A dazzling sophomore year did just that, and now he has an opportunity to better himself on the national team.

But that won’t stop others from getting excited for the future in store for the unicorn.

Said Rucci: “Man, I hope I’ll be there with all our Gloucester Catholic guys in the school cafeteria and watch him go first round.”