Maryland
Wake Forest*
Terps Knock Off 24th-Ranked Wake Forest, 3-2
4/23/2006 8:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 23, 2006
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The Maryland Terrapins (18-25, 7-17 ACC) earned their seventh victory of the season over a ranked opponent on Sunday afternoon, defeating No. 24 Wake Forest, 3-2, at Hooks Stadium in the series finale. After falling behind early, the Terps, who improved to 10-4 in one-run games, shut the Demon Deacons out over the final eight innings while the offense manufactured a comeback.
Mike Murphy collected a career-high three hits in four at-bats and Chad Durakis and Nick Jowers each posted multi-hit efforts to lead Maryland, which avoided its third consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference series sweep and snapped an eight-game league losing streak.
Seth Overbey (2-1) threw two innings of relief to pick up the win and Brett Cecil went 1.1 innings out of the bullpen to notch his 11th save of the season.
With the scored tied, 2-2, in the eighth, Maryland forged ahead against Wake right-hander Kyle Young (4-2). Durakis led off with a base hit and Murphy followed with an infield single to put men on first and second for Steve Braun. The Terp shortstop laid down a sacrifice bunt towards third baseman Matt Antonelli, who fielded the ball cleanly but made a poor throw to first. Pinch runner Wink Nolan, who had moved to third on the bunt, broke for home and slid in safely with the go-ahead run following yet another throwing by the second baseman.
With the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, Cecil retired the final two Wake Forest hitters to seal the victory.
Left-hander Brett Tidball started on the hill for Maryland, but did not factor into the decision after being removed with a tie game in the sixth. After yielding two runs in the first, he held Wake Forest scoreless on just two hits over his final 4.2 innings before leaving with a man on in favor of Overbey.
The Terps found themselves in an early hole after giving up two runs to Wake in the first. Antonelli doubled in the first run of the game on a curveball from Tidball before Allan Dykstra scored on a groundout to short to give the Demon Deacons a 2-0 advantage.
Starting pitcher Justin Keadle held Maryland scoreless until the fourth inning when Murphy brought the Terps to within one. With two down, the freshman third baseman sent a 2-1 offering over the fence in right for his second homer of the year to make it 2-1.
Righty Tyler Smith came on start the sixth inning in place of Keadle and was immediately greeted by designated hitter Gerry Spessard, who drilled a leadoff home run to right to tie things up at two.
Maryland will host Delaware State on Tuesday and Towson on Wednesday before conducting their final ACC home series of the year next weekend against border rival Virginia.
