Entering Sunday’s road game against Cal State Fullerton, the Terrapins baseball team had committed at least one error in nine consecutive contests.

When a reporter mentioned the streak after the contest, coach John Szefc started his answer with a sarcastic “Thanks.” Center fielder Anthony Papio’s eyebrows rose in surprise upon hearing the number.

But the Terps could joke about their miscues in the field after Sunday’s matchup. The team ended the streak with nine innings of error-free defense against the then-No. 23 Titans, and right-hander Brian Shaffer threw a complete shutout in a 1-0 win that secured a series victory.

“Our defense today was great,” Papio said.

Earlier in the week, Szefc wasn’t in the mood to smile about his team’s defense. In a 9-5 loss at UC Irvine on Wednesday, the Terps committed two errors that lead to four unearned runs.

Still, right fielder Madison Nickens remained confident in this group.

“All the right guys are on this team,” Nickens said. “It just comes down to performance in a game. … The defense is good enough; we just have to make it happen.”

And Sunday, the Terps put it all together.

“It took a lot of runs off the board,” Papio said of the defense, “which gave us a great chance to win the game.”

Papio was one of two Terps who found some redemption with their glove in Sunday’s rubber match against Cal State Fullerton.

With a runner on third late in the game against UC Irvine, the fifth-year senior charged in and caught a fly ball for the second out of the sixth inning. But Papio caught the ball well off to the side of his body — a poor position to make a throw from — and began to turn his back to the infield.

While he quickly recovered and fired the ball to the plate, the time lost due to the lack of urgency allowed the Anteaters runner to score.

But Sunday, after Nickens dove unsuccessfully for a line drive, Papio raced over, collected the ball from the base of the wall and fired it in toward the infield. Second baseman Nick Dunn received the throw and sent the ball home, just in time to beat the Titans runner.

“We practice [those] tandem relays a lot,” Szefc said. “When you practice stuff, it pays off for you, and that’s exactly what happened.”

And Dunn wasn’t finished saving runs for his team. With one out in the sixth and runners on first and third, Shaffer induced a chopper to Dunn’s left. Even after Dunn ranged over to collect it, Szefc thought the game would be tied.

“I didn’t even think he was going to [throw] back to second,” the fourth-year coach said. “I thought he was going to take the out at first and minimize [the damage].”

Instead, Dunn whirled around to whip the ball to shortstop Kevin Smith at second, barely beating the runner. Smith got the ball to first with even less room to spare, but he completed the double play and preserved the shutout.

“He’s got balls,” Szefc said of why Dunn tried to turn a double play on the softly hit ball in the hole.

Against UC Irvine, Dunn failed to come up with a couple of balls hit his way, though Szefc said the plays weren’t “layups.” So for Dunn, Sunday’s game appeared to be a promising sign.

“When he came into school, his defense was far behind his offense,” Szefc said. “His defense has improved more since he’s gotten to school than his offense has. And only people that saw him in the fall will understand that statement.”

After Wednesday’s game against UC Irvine, the team said the only solution to its defensive woes was more practice. But no matter what caused the defense to improve between Wednesday and Sunday, the result was a shutout to take the series from the Titans.

“We talk all the time about taking runs off the board with your defense,” Szefc said.

But the Terps didn’t just talk about having a solid defense Sunday.

They played it, too.