The Terrapins softball team lost three of four games at the District Invite this past weekend, dropping its overall record to 6-13.
But amid the disappointing weekend was an encouraging performance from a middle-of-the-order hitter who had experienced a slow start to her senior campaign.
Infielder Corey Schwartz helped the Terps achieve one of their best offensive weekends of the season. She hit .643 with three extra-base hits, and the Terps scored 4.5 runs per game, their second-largest tournament output to date.
“I’ve settled down,” she said. “I found my swing and I’m feeling good at the plate right now.”
Schwartz led the team with 15 home runs a year ago, but she failed to demonstrate that same power stroke during trips to Arizona, Georgia and Florida. She had just two extra-base hits through her first 15 contests.
She focused on treating every at bat as a separate opportunity, but said the slump was a distraction that made her try to do too much.
That changed in Washington, though.
In a 5-4 loss to Georgetown on Friday, Schwartz went 3-for-3 with a triple and an RBI. She followed that up with a 1-for-3 performance against Monmouth and a 2-for-4 showing against George Washington.
Schwartz also played an integral role in the Terps’ 5-4 comeback win over Columbia on Sunday. She went 3-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI.
Her biggest at-bat came with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning and the Terps trailing 4-3. She knocked a single to left-center field and came around to score the tying run two batters later on catcher Kristina Dillard’s walk-off hit.
“It was such a big win,” Schwartz said. “It brought a lot of life to us and a lot of energy.”
The Terps are still scoring just four runs per game, compared with the nearly 6.3 runs they scored last season.
But the re-emergence of Schwartz’s power stroke out of the three-spot in the batting order is a good sign, especially entering a weekend trip that includes two games at No. 14 Oklahoma, which had a 2.19 team ERA and a 22-1 home record a year ago.
