It took facing the worst team in the country for Maryland softball to break out of its batting slump.
The Terps recorded 19 hits against Maryland Eastern Shore on Tuesday in their first double-digit hit performance since March 22. They also put up 19 runs, the most the program has scored since 2015.
“I think that’s really cool and something to build off of, obviously, coming off of a tough stretch for us,” coach Lauren Karn said.
The Terps had lost their previous 10 games before the Hawks matchup, dropping their win percentage from .500 to .375. Their issues have largely been due to poor hitting, as only three of Maryland’s starters are batting .300 or above.
Karn said that the team discussed resiliency before a recent game, going over different ways that this team has been resilient throughout the season. She noted that this has really been tested lately due to the team’s struggles, and that a group can start to feel less connected when they face adversity.
“Right now, I think it’s easy to feel down on ourselves individually, and then also be looking for someone else to do the job that you’re not feeling like you can do,” Karn said.
[Maryland softball snaps 10-game skid with 19-0 mercy-rule win over Maryland Eastern Shore]
Maryland struck out 54 times during the losing streak while only recording 34 hits. Eight of those were from first baseman Sydney Lewis.
Lewis has been the Terps’ most reliable hitter, leading the team in RBIs, hits and home runs. The junior tallied at least one hit in every game of the Iowa series, arguably Maryland’s lowest morale point of the season.
“I have a really big role this year of scoring runs,” Lewis said. “I’ve always kind of been in a spot for that, and I think I’ve been executing that from a pretty good standpoint.”
Lewis has taken on a leadership role in keeping Maryland’s hitters in the right mindset at the plate. She tries to remind her teammates that they don’t need to hit a home run every time they’re at bat, and that sometimes it’s just about hitting the ball hard and hoping that luck is on your side.
Her success is a testament to her self-confidence, Lewis said, despite the team’s recent losing skid.
“I try to keep it really simple in terms of goals and what we’re wanting out of at-bats,” Lewis said. “I hope we can apply what we’ve been talking about these past few weeks and put them into these upcoming games and create some momentum.”
[Maryland softball suffers third straight series sweep in 7-2 loss to Iowa]
Karn hopes that the other batters are able to adopt this mindset, noting that she doesn’t want her starters to feel like they have to “carry the weight of the team” in a single at-bat.
Maryland is on a seven-day break before returning to action next week. The Terps will play Delaware on Wednesday, followed by Penn State for their last home series — both matchups that Lewis called “very winnable.”
The Nittany Lions’ pitching rotation has the worst ERA in the Big Ten, and the Maryland Eastern Shore game showed there’s still life in Maryland’s bats.
The Terps still have to jump three spots to sneak into the Big Ten tournament, which they haven’t missed since the 2021 season.
“We can put balls in play hard, we can get runners on base, we can be aggressive base running,” Karn said. “What’s at stake is getting into the Big Ten tournament.”