It took a SportsCenter Top 10 play to save Maryland baseball from disaster.

Elijah Lambros watched the ball fly off Owen McElfatrick’s bat with the Terps leading Northwestern by one run in extra innings. The center fielder patiently waited along the left-center field warning track before leaping to snag the ball out of midair, robbing a potential game-tying home run.

Lambros’ game-ending grab secured a 9-8 win for Maryland on Sunday. After dropping the first two games of the weekend set, it allowed the Terps to leave Evanston, Illinois with something — even if it wasn’t a lot.

“I told the guys it was gonna take something like that,” coach Matt Swope said. “Hopefully this will give us a little bit of a reset going forward.”

The Terps tumbled down the standings in the past two weeks. They’ve lost eight of their last 12 games and went 1-4 last week after starting the season 19-6. Maryland is 5-7 through four weekends of conference play, good for eighth in the Big Ten, after being picked to finish third in the preseason poll.

[Maryland baseball falls to Northwestern in extra innings, 6-5]

The last five games were a small part of the Terps’ recent struggles. They blew three leads in the sixth inning or later — once to Georgetown and twice against Northwestern — thanks to woeful relief pitching and subpar hitting.

Maryland led Georgetown 9-4 in the sixth inning on Tuesday before the Hoyas scored nine unanswered to claim a four-run advantage. Andrew Johnson, Duke McCarron and Alex Walsh allowed those runs in less than two innings of work.

Against Northwestern on Friday, the Terps were ahead 5-3 before Logan Berrier conceded two runs in the eighth inning. The Wildcats went on to win the game, 6-5, courtesy of a walkoff single by Tony Livermore.

Maryland’s pitching hasn’t struggled quite as much as it did last season. It currently sits sixth in the Big Ten with a 5.55 ERA. But without a go-to ace and an inconsistent bullpen, blown leads continue to be a problem for the Terps late in games.

“We get up four runs,” Swope said Friday. “We can’t lose a four-run lead. You can’t lose a game in that situation.”

Pitching isn’t the only problem, though. The Terps only scored once Saturday in a 10-run beatdown. They cobbled together just two runs against UMBC on Wednesday in a 4-2 loss to a team ranked outside the top 200 in RPI.

[Maryland baseball’s revamped pitching staff is delivering lousy results of late]

Maryland hasn’t hit for the same power numbers as last year when it rolled through the Big Ten with a conference-leading 131 homers. It also isn’t leading the Big Ten in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage like it did in 2023.

But Swope knew his team wouldn’t replicate the absurd numbers it put up at the plate after losing Matt Shaw, Luke Shliger and Nick Lorusso — three 2023 MLB draft picks.

“We’ve definitely been missing out a little bit this season where in the past we’ve kind of relied on that,” Swope said.

Maryland remains top five in the Big Ten in hits and homers. But it ranks in the bottom half of the conference in RBIs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

The Terps no longer terrorize Big Ten pitchers at the plate. Their failure to score runs late in games last weekend is proof. That paired with a pitching staff that’s allowed 9.8 runs a game over its last 12 contests hasn’t been a winning combination.

If Swope’s squad wants to make another run to the postseason, it must find other ways to win.