TYSONS, Va. — Matt Swope preaches stacking winning days for Maryland baseball — starting with midweek games. The Terps have won their nonconference matchups in each of the past three weeks, but they’ve followed it with poor conference showings.

Maryland wasn’t able to start this week with a win, though.

The Terps fell to Georgetown, 11-8, as the Hoyas claimed the season series win with their victory Tuesday. Maryland claimed the last three season series since the two schools began playing each other again in 2022.

“Obviously not what you want in a midweek trying to bounce back from [losing] Sunday,” Swope said.

The Terps fell into a quick 4-0 hole in the first inning after redshirt sophomore Brayden Ryan surrendered two homers, including a leadoff shot on his first pitch.

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Ryan surrendered three more runs in the bottom of the third to keep the Terps at a four-run deficit. It spelled the end to his start, which lasted 2 ⅔ innings.

The performance was a far cry from recent starts from the right-hander. It was Ryan’s sixth consecutive start after serving in a relief role in his first four appearances as a Terp.

He spotted a 15.00 ERA out the bullpen — but entered Tuesday’s meeting with a 2.97 average as a starter. The loss against Georgetown dropped his season’s average to 7.12.

“If you look at us as a whole … it’s been up and down roller coaster of inconsistency,” Swope said. “It’s pretty much everyone, a lot of up and down.”

The redshirt sophomore transferred to Maryland after leading Merrimack in strikeouts in 2024 with 14 starts.  Last week, he credited being back in a starting role to feeling more comfortable — which was evident with back-to-back seven-inning starts leading into this week’s performance.

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“It’s a lot easier than relieving,” Ryan said after striking out a season-high six batters last week. “I’ve been starting my whole life.”

Ryan’s first season with the Terps started poorly after he suffered an oblique injury in the fall — limiting his preseason action and having him slowly ease back into throwing.

At the same time, the Terps’ coaching staff admitted they overcomplicated the redshirt sophomore’s pitching arsenal to open the year. Ryan threw both a four-seam and two-seam fastball, and after his struggles, the staff cut it down to just one variation of the heater.

“We scratched one of his pitches and just stuck with the other one,” pitching coach Jimmy Jackson said earlier this month. “And he’s been a different guy, even the way he acts and he talks, the way he is in his bullpens even, it’s like he trusts his stuff so much better, a little more confident.”

Freshman Logan Hastings held the Hoyas scoreless for the next 2 ⅓ innings, striking out two.

Georgetown then scored two more runs, with one apiece off Andrew Johnson and Devin Milberg, before Hollis Porter knocked his second homer of the game to decrease the deficit to three.

The two sides exchanged two-run frames between the bottom of the eighth and top of the ninth, ending the Terps midweek winning streak. The loss begins an uphill battle for the Terps to build a winning week, who have yet to win a weekend series this season.

“Mostly uninspiring there in the middle,” Swope said. “But like the way the guys fought at the end, just didn’t come all the way back.”