Terps Travel To No. 5 Miami For Final Road Series Of The Season

April 28, 2005

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TERPS TRAVEL TO NO. 5 MIAMI FOR FINAL ROAD SERIES

Already with two more wins in Atlantic Coast Conference play than last season, Maryland baseball travels to No. 5 Miami for its final three road games of the season. The series will get started Friday at 7 p.m. with left-hander Josh Andrews expected to start against Cesar Carrillo, who is tied for the NCAA lead with nine wins this season.

Sunday's game will air on Comcast Sports South, the Terps' second of two televised games this season. Audio broadcasts for all three games will again be available on www.wmucsports.com, and live stats will be available by logging on to the www.umterps.com baseball site.

Information can now be submitted to join an online newsletter mailing list. Titled "The Maryland Baseball Bulletin", the newsletter is sent to you each time new information is posted to the Maryland website. This includes weekend previews, game recaps, feature stories and more.

PREVIEWING MIAMI

2005 Record: 31-10-1 (15-5-1, Atlantic Coast Conference).
2004 Record: 50-13 (Independent).
All-Time Series: This is the first meeting between the two schools.

Perennial powerhouse Miami comes into this weekend third in the ACC with a 15-5-1 record in conference play, but is just one game behind North Carolina for the conference's top spot. The Hurricanes have won six of their seven conference series so far this season, with their lone loss coming at the hands of Georgia Tech. They are 7-1-1 in their last nine games and are 22-7 at Mark Light Field this season.

Sophomore Jon Jay and junior Ryan Braun lead a Miami offense that ranks among the nation's top 15 teams in batting average (7th, .331 avg.), scoring (6th, 9.2 runs/g) and slugging percentage (15th, .504 avg.). Jay and Braun are second and third in the conference in hitting, respectively, with Braun also ranking among the top three in the league in: runs (1st), home runs (3rd), RBI (2nd), stolen bases (2nd), total bases (2nd) and slugging percentage (.736).

Miami is the only team in the conference to have hit 40 home runs and stolen 80 bases, and it is one of four teams to have walked 200 times this season. Seven Hurricane regulars are hitting over .300 and slugging over .450. Outfielder Danny Figueroa leads the team and is third in the ACC with 36 walks, and Paco Figueroa and Roger Tomas are tied for the team lead with four triples.

Cesar Carrillo leads the Hurricane pitching staff with a 1.44 ERA, 9-0 record, 77 strikeouts and a 0.93 WHIP. Saturday starter Brandon Camardese is 5-0 with a 5.09 ERA, and Sunday starter Ricky Orta is 6-3 with a 4.91 ERA in nine starts. Junior left-hander Andrew Lane leads the team and is third in the conference with 26 appearances out of the bullpen, posting a 2-0 record and 1.85 ERA in 34.0 innings. Chris Perez and Danny Gil have each saved three games, with Perez ranking second on the team with a .198 opponent batting average.

Pitching
Chris Bowen is among the ACC leaders with a 3.52 ERA (t-8th) and .207 opponent batting average (2nd) in conference games ... Brett Cecil has given up one run in his last 9.0 innings and has a 1.75 ERA in the 10 appearances in which he walks less than two batters ... Chris Clem has gone at least 6.0 innings in eight of his last nine starts ... Clem has averaged 3.0 runs of support in his last six starts ... Justin Hulse leads the team and ranks seventh in the ACC with 21 appearances ... last season, Hulse set a Maryland single-season record with 28 appearances ... junior Michael Meagher has emerged as the team's closer, having recorded three saves and a fourth in the team's exhibition win over the Bowie Baysox ... Ryan Moorer won the first game of his career after holding Coppin State to two hits and two runs over 5.0 innings ... Seth Overbey has given up one extra-base hit in his last 4.2 innings, after allowing seven in his first 11.1 innings this season ... Ben Pfinsgraff leads the team with six quality starts this season ... seven of his 10 starts have been decided by two runs or less, and he has walked more than one batter in just two of his starts ... Mike Sufczynski won his fourth straight decision with a career-high 7.0 shutout innings ... Sufczynski has given up two earned runs or less in six of his seven starts ... Brad Taylor has a 16:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Offense
Redshirt freshman Taylor Baum made the first appearance of his career in the team's win over Coppin State (4/19) ... Chad Durakis leads the team with a .375 batting average with runners on base and is second with a 53.6% success rate advancing runners ... Will Frazier has hits in 23 of his last 25 games and has scored 25 runs over that time ... Frazier now leads the team in: home runs (6), RBI (29), runs (30), two-out hits (25) and two-out RBI (14) ... Brian Jarosinski has the team's longest current hit streak at six games ... three of those six have been multi-hit games ... Matt Maropis has successfully stolen eight straight bases and is now tied for the team lead with 11 on the season ... Truan Mehl is hitting .513 (20-for-39) in his last eight games ... Mehl has driven in 18 runs in his last 24 and scored 14 runs in his last 10 ... Dan Melvin is expected to miss about two weeks with a foot injury ... freshman Joe Palumbo is third on the team with 15 walks and tied for fourth with a .383 on-base percentage ... Palumbo has played four different positions this season: second base, third base, shortstop and right field ... Bobby Ryan had the team's first walk-off base hit of the season against Mount St. Mary's (4/13) ... Elliot Singletary leads the ACC and is tied for third in the country in doubles per game (0.50/g) ... Singletary has scored 10 runs in his last nine games and has walked six times in his last seven ... Jordan Wilson has driven in runs in 15 games this season, with Maryland going 11-4 in those games ... the team is just 6-16 when Wilson does not collect an RBI.

ELLIOT DOUBLETARY AND THE TWO-BASE TERRAPINS

With five doubles in his last four games, senior infielder Elliot Singletary now leads the ACC and is third in the nation in doubles per game (0.50/g). 22 of Singletary's 39 hits this season have been for extra bases, with a team-high 19 of those being doubles.

Singletary leads a group of five Terrapin hitters with at least 10 doubles, as Maryland has climbed to No. 6 in the country in two-base hits. Truan Mehl and Dan Melvin are tied for second on the team and eighth in the league with 15 (0.35/g), and Will Frazier, second on the school's career doubles list with 56, has 13 on the season.

MIDDLE INFIELD LEADS DEFENSIVE RESURGENCE

After some early defensive struggles, the Maryland infield defense seems to have worked out its problems. Through 35 games this season, the team had averaged 2.6 errors per game. But in its last nine games, Terp defenders have nearly cut that number in half, averaging just over 1.3 errors per game.

The middle infield combination of Elliot Singletary and Dan Melvin has been a catalyst for the improvement. Melvin has committed one error in his last 10 games after 16 in his first 33, and Singletary, the team's steadiest defender, has one error in his last 13 games. Singletary has made 20 straight starts at second base, and in the last 17 of those, the team has spun 18 double plays.

CECIL BACK TO EARLY SEASON FORM

Freshman left-hander Brett Cecil is rediscovering the early season form that saw him start the year with eight scoreless innings in his first three appearances. In his last two games, Cecil has allowed just five base runners and one earned run in nine innings out of the bullpen.

In those two games, Cecil threw 93 of 146 pitches for strikes and walked just one batter. The freshman has found great success when he has command of the strike zone, as evidenced by a 1.75 ERA when he walks one batter or less (10 games, 25.2 innings).

Head Coach Terry Rupp has shown confidence in the freshman, giving Cecil the ball in 12 games this season - the second-most appearances on the team. Nine of those 12 games have been decided by two runs or less, including six in conference play.

JAWS FINDING HIS STROKE

Junior outfielder Brian Jarosinski got off to a slow start this season, but is starting to heat up as we head into the final week in April. He has hits in six straight games, including two or more hits three times. In Friday's series opener against Wake Forest, Jarosinski drove in two runs, including a game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth inning.

THE VON BEHREN OF FREE PASSES

Junior infielder Jason Von Behren is becoming a more patient and disciplined hitter in the last two weeks. Von Behren has seven walks and just six strikeouts in his last nine games, and, prior to that, Von Behren had walked seven times to 28 strikeouts in 32 games.

Von Behren has at least one walk in his last three games, and his increase in on-base percentage (.545 in the last three games) has led to more runs being scored. Von Behren has scored four runs in his last five games after scoring one in his previous nine games.

Terps Travel To No. 5 Miami For Final Road Series Of The Season

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