After a narrow win over Virginia (6-3) on Friday, No. 25 Maryland softball (6-1) returned Saturday for their second match against the Cavaliers.
It was a different day, same result for the Terps, as they beat Virginia 6-4 Saturday at Chapel Hill in the first half of a doubleheader.
Senior Courtney Wyche manned the bump. She came into the game with a 2-1 record and a 4.61 ERA.
She needed to bail out her teammates in the first. The Terps’ defense struggled, committing two errors that gave Virginia a run. But Wyche struck out two batters and escaped the frame with just that one run allowed.
Maryland struggled to get runners against the Virginia starter early, just as it did in Friday’s game. This time it was senior Jenny Bressler who shut down the Terps’ offense over the first two innings.
[Amelia Lech’s late home run pushes Maryland softball to 2-1 win over Virginia]
The trend continued on the other side as Wyche settled into the game. The senior limited Virginia after the first frame, holding it scoreless for the next three innings.
Maryland broke through Bressler in the third inning. Sophomore Amelia Lech walked with two outs and loaded the bases for senior Mackense Greico.
Greico lined a single up the middle, scoring both junior Jaeda McFarland and senior Kiley Goff to put Maryland up 2-1. The hit continues a strong start to the year for the senior, who entered the game batting .471 with eight RBIs.
Fellow senior Trinity Schlotterbeck expanded the Terps’ lead in the fourth and fifth innings. The dual-threat shut down Virginia’s offense Friday on the mound and delivered Saturday in the batters’ box.
Schlotterbeck drove a ball to deep left field for her first home run of the season, putting Maryland up 3-1.
[Maryland softball’s high-powered offense has it off to a blistering start]
That home run proved crucial as Virginia struck back the next inning. In the top of the fifth, sophomore Sarah Coon, who was on the ACC All-Freshman team last season, crushed a ball out to center for a homer.
Maryland got the run back and more in the bottom of the inning. Freshman Sydney Lewis hit her first career home run to put the Terps up 4-2. Schlotterbeck then delivered again, driving another two runs in with a two-out single that extended the lead to four.
Freshman Keira Bucher, who’s already made five appearances, replaced Wyche to preserve the Maryland win. The reliever ran into some trouble in the sixth as Virginia’s Kailyn Jones tripled to bring home two runners and trimmed the Terps lead to just two.
Maryland didn’t add any runs in the bottom of the sixth, giving Bucher a thin margin to work with. But she shut down the Cavaliers in the final frame, with a pair of groundouts and a strikeout that gave the Terps the win in the first game of the doubleheader.
Lech helps Terps down Tar Heels
Maryland moved to 2-0 on the day after beating North Carolina 5-3.
Amelia Lech knocked a two-run home run in the third inning that put the Terps up. Three runs split evenly across the next three innings helped Maryland secure a win as Schlotterbeck allowed three runs in 4 ⅔ innings pitched.
