When Maryland baseball center fielder Zach Jancarski arrived at second base, he clapped his hands twice and pointed toward the dugout. After LSU right-hander Eric Walker retired the side in the second inning of his team’s 9-5 win over the Terps on Sunday, Jancarski doubled to open the third.
Jancarski’s hit came after he opened the game with a leadoff home run, scoring the Terps’ second run of the three-game series. He hit a breaking ball into the left field bleachers with the wind blowing out of Alex Box Stadium.
Jancarski matched his home run total from 2016 with Sunday’s long ball, but the East Norriton, Pennsylvania, native’s focus was getting on base as the leadoff hitter. Though the No. 4 Tigers swept the Terps, Jancarski reached base six times.
“I just wanted to come out and get the guys fired up, even if it’s a walk or base hit,” he said. “I’m not going up trying to hit a home run. When it did go out, it provided the spark that we needed that had a domino effect on the rest of the inning.”
The leadoff home run fueled Maryland’s lone offensive burst of the afternoon in the series finale. Right fielder Marty Costes followed the long ball with a single, and designated hitter Will Watson hit a two-run home run to give the Terps a 3-0 lead before left-hander Tyler Blohm took the mound for the first time.
Jancarski’s success Sunday might have carried over from his final at-bat against LSU left-hander Jared Poche on Saturday. Poche, who threw seven no-hit innings in his first outing of the season, didn’t allow a hit through eight innings against the Terps.
Poche faced the top of Maryland’s lineup a fourth time, and Jancarski “had a pretty good feel for what [Poche] was feeling.” His instinct told him Poche didn’t want to issue a walk — he had already walked two batters and hit another.
Poche threw a breaking ball in the lower part of the strike zone and then elevated his fastball, Jancarski noticed. Jancarski was able to work the count to 3-2, and when he did, he predicted Poche would throw a fastball. Jancarski thought, “If I hit it in the right spot, there wouldn’t be a play at first base.”
Jancarski hit the pitch up the middle to end Poche’s no-hit bid.
“I respected him a lot for that,” Costes said. “It took a lot of gut to do that, with a guy cruising like Poche was. He easily could have rolled over and called it a day, but he was even deep in the count at that time. It gave me a lot of confidence in myself going up [to the plate].”
Jancarski’s 2-for-3 performance came after he earned just three hits through his first 20 at-bats. But coach John Szefc wasn’t surprised with his bounce back performance.
“That’s his job as a leadoff hitter, to have tough at-bats and get on base,” Szefc said. “He usually has pretty decent at-bats regardless of the outcome. He sees a lot of pitches. It really didn’t surprise me that he was able to break that no-hitter up.”
