Jose Cuas

With runners on second and third base in the eighth inning Friday night, the Terrapins baseball team looked set to add to its 4-2 lead over No. 25 Georgia Tech when Jose Cuas stepped into the batter’s box. Seconds later, the third baseman trotted around the bases after his homer over the left-field fence sealed the Terps’ 7-2 victory.

Just like Cuas’ home run provided insurance Friday, the Terps used another late rally Saturday against the Yellow Jackets at Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium to secure their second ACC series victory of the season. Though the Terps didn’t produce late runs yesterday and failed to complete a series sweep, they still gave themselves a cushion for fourth place in the Atlantic Division.

“It’s a tough loss today,” center fielder Charlie White said yesterday. “It hurts, but overall, we took two of three and won the series, and that’s what we are looking to do every weekend.”

The Terps (24-14, 9-11 ACC) overcame an early 2-0 deficit Friday and scored six runs in the seventh and eighth while right-hander Jake Stinnett threw 141 pitches in his second straight complete game to halt the Yellow Jackets (25-16, 11-10), who entered the series having won nine of 10.

Stinnett struggled early and allowed two runs in the first two innings, but after that, he didn’t allow another hit until the eighth and finished with 10 strikeouts.

Though the Terps sealed the game on Cuas’ deep blast, coach John Szefc turned to small ball to manufacture runs and start the team’s comeback. White laid down a suicide squeeze — the first of three on the weekend — to plate the go-ahead run in a three-run seventh.

An inning later, Cuas’ team-leading fifth homer helped the Terps to their first series-opening win since a March 21 victory over then-No. 10 N.C. State. The win was also the Terps’ second straight triumph after their opponent scored first. Before an 11-4 victory over Navy on April 16, the Terps were 0-11 when opponents scored the first run.

“Good teams play well from behind, and obviously this week we’ve done that,” Szefc said Friday. “To our pitchers’ credit, too, we haven’t been down five to nothing.”

The Terps again relied on solid starting pitching and a late offensive surge Saturday. They struggled to produce with runners in scoring position, but two runs in the eighth and right-hander Mike Shawaryn’s solid start lifted the team to a 4-1 win.

Shawaryn, who had lost two of his past three starts, had a career-high nine strikeouts and allowed one run in six innings. The freshman leads the Terps with a 7-2 record and a 2.63 ERA.

While the Terps tallied 11 hits Saturday and put runners at third with one out in three of the first five innings, they relied on a double play and a wild pitch to score their first two runs.

In the eighth, left fielder Tim Lewis, who entered the weekend with zero RBIs, picked up his third RBI of the series, and right fielder Anthony Papio, who entered the game as a defensive replacement, executed another suicide squeeze to put the Terps ahead, 4-2.

But yesterday the Yellow Jackets scored seven runs in the 12th inning to hand the Terps a 13-6 loss. While the offense continued to put runners on — the Terps tied a season-high with 16 hits — its recent struggles with runners in scoring position continued.

The Terps stranded 13 and didn’t score after the sixth inning. They also committed a season-high four errors, part of an uncharacteristically poor defensive performance.

“It’d be nice if we could produce with runners in scoring position a little more and then turn those 16 hits into 10 runs,” White said.

While the Terps couldn’t polish off an ACC sweep, they rode late offensive rallies and solid starting pitching to wins in Games 1 and 2 that helped them move into a better position with the ACC tournament looming in a month. And they enter the just more than three final weeks of the regular season after a valuable series victory.

“From last Saturday’s game with Virginia Tech on, we’ve played pretty well,” Szefc said yesterday. “Our guys played hard through the week. I think we really got to a much better team this week, from Virginia Tech on. We played our best from last Saturday through today.”