Maryland’s baseball season is officially over.
The Terrapins were eliminated in the College Park Regional Final after an 11-8 loss to UConn on Monday night.
Despite the loss, the 2022 season was notable for Maryland baseball. The Terps finished with a 49-14 record – the most wins in a season in program history – and they won the regular season conference championship for the first time since 1971. This year was also the first time that College Park hosted a regional.
If you only watched into the first batter, you would’ve thought Maryland had a great chance of advancing. Luke Shliger blasted a leadoff home run to put the Terps ahead 1-0.
From there, things went downhill.
UConn scored six runs in the bottom of the first, crushing all the Terps’ momentum. Maryland starter Andrew Johnson recorded just two outs and walked four before Sean Heine entered, only to hit the first batter he faced and allow a grand slam to the second.
The Huskies added a run in the third and two more in the fourth to take a 9-1 lead into the fifth inning, where the Terps began to show signs of life. Playing some small ball, Maryland scored four runs on a single, a sacrifice fly, a wild pitch and another single.
In the bottom half, UConn scored another run to stretch its lead to 10-5. Maryland quickly fought back with a two-run homer from Chris Alleyne in the seventh inning to pull within 10-7.
Maryland scored another run in the eighth, and then it appeared to add another before a controversial ruling took a run off the board. Alleyne hustled out an infield single before colliding with the first baseman. The runner who scored was sent back to third, while Alleyne was ruled out:
UConn padded its lead with an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth and Maryland went down in order in the ninth to end its season.
Wth home field advantage, Maryland entered the College Park Regional as the favorite to advance to the Super Regional. The Terrapins defeated Long Island University to begin the run before losing to UConn and falling to the elimination bracket. Maryland then beat Wake Forest and handed UConn its first loss of the tournament to force Monday’s do-or-die game.
After winning the College Park Regional Final, UConn will face the winner of Stanford and Texas State in the Super Regional. It will be the Huskies’ first trip to the Super Regional since 2011.