RICHMOND Va. – The Maryland pitching staff utilized nine arms as the Terps gutted out a 4-3 win over VCU at The Diamond Tuesday afternoon.
The Terrapins (5-2) have now won five straight games since starting the season 0-2. Freshman Maxwell Costes delivered the go-ahead RBI single to make it 3-2 in the seventh before senior AJ Lee gave the Terps an insurance they would need with an RBI single in the ninth.
"We threw a ton of guys today," head coach Rob Vaughn said. "That was nice. It is getting our young guys a lot of touches and the more they are touching the baseball the better they are getting. It keeps a lot of guys engaged and a lot of guys from getting taxed too hard."
The Terps jumped in front in the top of the first. Junior Caleb Walls singled to leadoff the game before coming into score on a Randy Bednar double. Redshirt freshman left-hander Drew Wilden made his first career start for Maryland, giving up a single run in two innings while recording a pair of strikeouts.
After VCU scored a run in the third, Maryland pulled the game back in the fifth. Sophomore Chris Alleyne legged out an infield single before moving to second on a Walls walk. Bednar then laid down a sac bunt to move the runners up to set the table for Taylor Wright, who hit a sac fly to score Alleyne.
Maryland's bullpen was fantastic throughout the day. Freshman lefty Andrew Vail recorded two outs in the fourth after freshman Daniel O'Connor ran into trouble. Sophomore righty Mark DiLuia pitched an effective inning and two thirds before junior right-hander Nick Turnbull did the same.
Turnbull recorded the first out of the eighth before sophomore lefty Sean Fisher struck out the second batter of the inning. Freshman Will Glock entered and surrendered a hit before getting the final out of the frame.
Wright walked to begin the Maryland ninth before a pair of outs. Michael Pineiro then struck out but reached on a wild pitch before Lee singled past the second baseman to score Wright.
Senior righty John Murphy gave up a run in the ninth, but retired the last two batters he faced to record his Big Ten leading third save of the season. Murphy has struck out nine and walked no one in five innings of work this year.
"As a senior, I've been through so much adversity like that where at this point it doesn't really affect me," Murphy said. "At the end of the day we got our fifth win in a row and that is all that matters."
Maryland returns to action this weekend at Louisiana-Lafayette. First pitch for Friday's contest is set for 7:30 p.m., and fans can listen to the action on the Maryland Baseball Network.
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