Ohio State outhit the Maryland baseball team, 13-11, in their three-game series this weekend. And in two of the contests, the Buckeyes held a lead into the ninth inning.

But thanks to late-inning heroics from the Terps’ offense, Maryland swept the Buckeyes in three low-scoring games, with two of the wins coming in walk-off fashion.

“You’ve got to get all 27 outs,” coach John Szefc said. “I’ve been on the other side of that many times, and it’s hard to get outs 25, 26 and 27.”

In the last two games of the series, Ohio State couldn’t close out the ninth. Maryland scored a combined four runs on three hits in the ninth inning of those games, adding three walks and a hit by pitch to help them on their way to victories.

“I have to give our guys credit; every one of those at-bats in the ninth was a tough at-bat,” Szefc said after Sunday’s 5-4 win, pointing to Nick Cieri and Kevin Smith’s full-count walks as crucial to the team’s comeback.

In fact, the Buckeyes didn’t even record the 25th out of Sunday’s game, let alone the 27th. The Terps sent six batters to the plate in the ninth and they all reached base, the final blow coming when freshman catcher Dan Maynard pulled a grounder into left field to give his team a walk-off win.

“We got the first guy on, and we kind of just took it from there,” Maynard said. “We really pride ourselves on having tough at-bats no matter what the situation is.”

For most of the last two games of the series, though, the offense struggled to generate production. In Friday’s doubleheader nightcap, Maryland didn’t record a hit until the 10th inning, and Sunday the Terps had just three before the ninth.

But in both games, Maryland rallied in the final innings. That ability, the Terps said, comes from the team’s mentality.

“I never consider us out of the fight even if we’re down six or seven in the last inning,” center fielder Anthony Papio said. “We’ve shown that we can string some things together late just because we believe in each other.”

The team’s pitching was also crucial to its success over the weekend.

Right-hander Taylor Bloom threw a complete game shutout on just 90 pitches in the first game of the series — a 3-0 win — and right-hander Brian Shaffer combined with four relievers to limit the Buckeyes to one run over 10 innings in a 2-1 win.

Junior right-hander Mike Shawaryn, who had been the Terps’ Friday-night ace this season, was moved to Sunday before the series due to struggles, and he showed improvement in his outing. Shawaryn worked into the seventh inning and gave up four runs while striking out a season-high 10 batters.

In both walk-offs, junior reliever Mike Rescigno had scoreless outings and earned the win. As a whole, the bullpen threw 4.2 innings against Ohio State and allowed just one hit.

“If our bullpen isn’t holding people there, we don’t have a chance to [come back],” Szefc said.

Thanks to the pitching and late offense, the Terps finished two of the games dogpiling on top of a teammate who had given their team a victory. Friday it was junior Madison Nickens near second base after a single, and Sunday it was Maynard at first after a single of his own.

“Our philosophy late in the game that’s really helped us is, ‘Pass it on to the next guy,'” said Papio, who had a two-run single in the ninth inning Sunday. “Don’t put a ton of pressure on yourself, just pass it to the next guy and eventually it will get done.”

That mindset worked in Maryland’s last two games against the Buckeyes, helping the Terps earn their first weekend series sweep of the season.

“The bottom line is we hung in there long enough to be able to finish at the end,” Szefc said, “and we did.”