Maryland baseball suffers 11-0 defeat to Iowa in Big Ten Tournament

Maryland baseball coach John Szefc said his team gained hope with each win it recorded down the stretch.

Even after each lost, the Terps found a way to keep themselves in the running for a spot in the eight-team Big Ten Tournament. A series victory against Michigan State to finish the regular season gave them hope, and two wins against Indiana in the conference tourney gave Maryland the same.

But as No. 8-seed Iowa racked up run after run in its 11-0 beating over the No. 6-seed Terps on Saturday at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska, to eliminate Maryland from the Big Ten Tournament, the Terps’ hope vanished for good.

With poor play on the mound and at the plate, Maryland suffered its largest deficit of the season in possibly its final game of the 2016 campaign. The Terps (30-27), who are on the bubble, will find out if they make the NCAA Tournament’s Field of 64 on Monday.

“It’s a frustrating day,” Szefc said. “We played hard here all week. That’s probably as hot of a team we’ve played the second half of the season. Obviously a lot of things didn’t go our way today.”

Starting pitching had been the backbone of the Maryland’s postseason success entering Saturday.

While the offense was inconsistent, the Terps’ starting pitchers combined to allow four earned runs in 25.1 innings in the team’s first three contests in the Big Ten Tournament. But that trend was put to a halt against the Hawkeyes (30-25), who will play in the tournament’s championship game Sunday after winning all three of their contests.

In his fifth career start, freshman right-hander Hunter Parsons allowed three runs in 3.2 innings while the offense was shutout for the third time this season.

“The biggest part was my mechanics were a little off,” Parsons said. “I found myself pulling off the mound a little bit, which was causing me to miss a lot of my spots. They were also battling very well. I credit them for that.”

After scoring five runs in its first game of the Big Ten Tournament, Maryland’s offense scored a combined six runs in its next three contests. That includes Saturday, when the Terps recorded four hits and went 2-for-15 with runners on base.

While the offense couldn’t get on the board, Parsons allowed two runners on base in the first three frames. But he ran into trouble in the fourth.

The Fruitland native allowed two RBI singles, a sacrifice fly and walked three batters in the inning allowing Iowa took a 3-0 lead before right-hander Ryan Selmer replaced Parsons with two outs.

Maryland’s bullpen has been one of the Terps’ weakest units this season, and it allowed the Hawkeyes to add insurance runs as it sifted through seven pitchers. The Terps, meanwhile, didn’t record a hit after the fourth frame as right-hander Nick Gallagher threw six scoreless relief innings.

“One of the things you try not to do in college baseball is let the relief pitcher kind of change the momentum of the game, and that’s exactly what we did,” Szefc said. “He pretty much dominated us.”

Selmer, who entered with a 4.50 ERA, threw 3.1 scoreless innings before overthrowing first baseman Peyton Sorrels in the eighth as left fielder Eric Schenck-Joblinske scored. Left-hander Andrew Miller, who entered with a 7.71 ERA, replaced Selmer after the miscue. Iowa then blew the contest open.

Shortstop Nick Roscetti hit an RBI single before center fielder Joel Booker knocked a two-RBI double to extend the Hawkeyes’ lead to 7-0. Right-hander Andrew Green replaced Miller as designated hitter Austin Guzzo hit an RBI single to leave the eighth with an 8-0 advantage.

Miller’s “normally pretty effective throwing against right-handed hitters,” Szefc said. “It didn’t happen today.”

Iowa added three more runs in the ninth. It marked the first time the Terps gave up double-digit runs since April 26.

After the game, Szefc said the Terps should be in the conversation to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament based on their strength of schedule.

That’s the only hope Maryland still has to keep its season alive.

“They just had a lot of momentum going their way,” said designated hitter Nick Cieri, who went 2-for-3 from the plate. “We were coming in pretty good too. They just used their momentum better than we did today.”