The Evolution Of Nick Lorusso

Since hitting the scene for Maryland baseball in the spring of 2022, Nick Lorusso has established himself as one of the country's most consistent and clutch hitters on an offense that has been one of the most fearsome in the NCAA.

The Monroe, CT, native played an instrumental role in one of Maryland's best seasons in 2022. The Terps compiled a 48-14 regular-season record, the best mark in program history, and secured their first-ever B1G regular-season title. In the process of being selected First Team All-Big Ten, Lorusso etched his name into the program record books with one of the best individual offensive seasons the Terps had seen, as his at-bats (258), RBI (70), total bases (145) and runs scored (83) from 2022 all rank among the top 10 Maryland single-season records.

And in 2023, he's only gotten better.

With the Terps pushing for their third consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, Lorusso has been rewriting his personal records while spearheading a lineup that ranks third in runs scored. Entering the home stretch of the 2023 regular season, Lorusso is on pace to set numerous career highs and ranks third in the country with 69 RBI as he is on the precipice of setting the program record in that department.

Then, of course, he has his incomparable hitting streak. Between Feb. 18 and April 14, Lorusso compiled a 31-game hitting streak, far surpassing the previous record of 19 set by Garry Maddox in 1996. 

Lorusso's rise to prominence didn't come from out of nowhere, as he built his reputation as one of the most consistent bats in Villanova's lineup for the first three seasons of his collegiate tenure. In his two full campaigns with the Wildcats, Lorusso paced the club in hitting by batting over .300 in his freshman and junior seasons. Additionally, he secured 2019 BIG EAST Freshman of the Year honors as the focal point in Villanova's lineup.

While earning his stripes in Philadelphia as a pitcher and a corner infielder, Lorusso developed a keen understanding of the collegiate game, adjusting to the speed of NCAA baseball quickly after a standout career at Masuk High School.

"The BIG EAST I feel like is known to be a little bit more of a pitcher's conference than hitter's conference," Lorusso said. "As a two-way player when I was there, I was able to get what I learned from the pitching standpoint and use that in order to develop my hitting skills."

By pitching and hitting for the Wildcats, Lorusso learned about the tendencies of other pitchers that he faced, which significantly impacted his offensive output during his development with Villanova.

"I've always thought that pitchers are creatures of habit," Lorusso said. "If I get to understand what a pitcher's habit is going into the game or seeing it developing in the game, that can help me on the offensive end."

After playing for Villanova from 2019 through 2021, the fourth-year junior entered the transfer portal hoping to find a program that could prepare him for his ultimate goal of getting drafted into the MLB and playing professionally.

During the 2021 season, Lorusso saw how Maryland aided burgeoning talent in the Terps' NCAA Regional run. Specifically, he witnessed the rise of Benjamin Cowles, who hit 18 home runs after recording just six total in his first two seasons in College Park.

Maryland also possessed the coaching technique and winning mindset that drew Lorusso's interest in the program. By talking to current teammates Luke Shliger and Bobby Zmarzlak about associate head coach Matt Swope's approach to hitting practice with a focus on the fundamentals, Lorusso decided he wanted to be a Terrapin for the 2022 season.

"This was a winning culture right when I got here," Lorusso said. "The culture is just something that's truly special here. We're all a close, tight-knit group of guys who enjoy similar habits and all that. I felt like there wasn't a bunch that needed to be changed, but some smaller things that really helped us make that regional, host a regional and do some of the things we set out to do."

Batting near the top of the lineup for a team that scored the second-most runs in the country, Lorusso had a critical role on a team stacked with All-Big Ten talent. He put on a hitting clinic in his first year with the Terps. He set career highs in every significant offensive category while mashing 15 home runs after hitting just five during his stint at Villanova.

"We're talking about the greatest team in Maryland baseball history last year, and he was a plug-and-play player hitting fourth every game," Swope said. "We knew what we were getting from him from his makeup and from his maturity. He was a natural hitter and the power is just a plus."

For Lorusso, the offensive explosion wasn't the result of a drastic shift in mechanics or a revolutionary approach to hitting but rather minor tweaks in his stance and developing a consistent routine of scouting opposing pitchers. Although Swope's one-of-a-kind methods have helped the Terps learn how to maximize their unique motor preference strengths, Lorusso's development at the plate and in the field has been dramatically affected by playing in their own "unique body language."

"Coach Swope does a great job of allowing us to feel in our motor preferences, which is something that I feel like has made me the most powerful hitter I've ever felt in my career," Lorusso said. "What your body wants to do is just as important as how strong you are, and that's something I've been able to educate myself on, and I feel like it's only shown throughout the season."

The mechanics aided Lorusso's growth in 2022, and the high-powered Maryland offense surrounding him allowed the newcomer ample opportunities with runners on base.

Lorusso was one of six Terp hitters to receive All-Big Ten recognition, as he had All-Big Ten First Team selection Matt Shaw and All-Big Ten Second Team honoree Luke Shliger setting the table at the top of the lineup. Following Lorusso, who regularly batted third for Maryland, came 2022 Big Ten Player of the Year, Chris Alleyne, and a pair of All-Big Ten Third-Team talents in Troy Schreffler Jr. and Maxwell Costes.

"Those guys gave me protection and forced teams to pick their poison in terms of who they want to pitch to," Lorusso said. "You know you have to pitch to one of the six. You can't just continue to keep putting guys on base because ultimately that will lead to run damage."

The stacked batting order's otherworldly production resulted in Maryland finishing as the No. 15 seed in the country, helping the Terps host their first regional in program history.

"Just the idea of hosting a regional something that only 16 teams could do a year and it doesn't come around every four years," Lorusso said. "It was a really proud season and a lot of guys feel that it was one of the better teams, if not the best team, in the entire program's history."

With College Park behind them, the Terps came out looking to advance to the team's first NCAA Super Regional appearance since 2015, posting 23 runs against LIU and battling from the brink of elimination against Wake Forest and UConn.

"It was definitely one of the cooler experiences having people lined up all the way down the street right behind the baseball field," Lorusso said. "To hear the roar of the crowd is something really special and something I'll never forget, but it definitely gave us a little bit of an edge having that crowd behind us."

With one game between the Terps and a date with a Super Regional, Maryland battled back from an early deficit against UConn in the win-or-go-home contest but could not overcome the Huskies in a high-scoring affair.

The loss stung especially for Lorusso as the Connecticut kid watched his home state school celebrate on the field at Bob "Turtle" Smith Stadium.

"Seeing UConn celebrate on our field and go to a regional that we felt like we deserved was definitely hard and something that drove me and drove others to be better this year," Lorusso said.

Right off the bat, Lorusso returned with a vengeance looking to will his team back into contention for a regional. After going hitless in the season opener against USF, Lorusso set the tone for his next two months in a big way, crushing a grand slam for his first hit of the season in the Terps' second contest of 2023. 

Between that Feb. 18 contest and April 14, Lorusso's 31-game hitting streak surpassed the program's next longest hitting streak by a dozen games. Racking up RBI at a staggering rate, he powered Maryland's offense that continued its dominance from 2022.

While several Terps were eager to remind Lorusso how long his hitting streak had gone, the fifth-year star didn't get too wrapped up in his run of hitting prowess and instead focused on taking the streak one at-bat at a time.

"Usually in long hit streaks like that, there's some flares here and flares there, and there's some cheap ones here," Vaughn said. "I don't know if that guy had a cheap hit in that streak, he was slamming balls all over the yard. Just extremely impressive to watch and you know that's gonna be a hard streak to break and I'm glad his name is going to be on that one because that's pretty special."

While he has shifted up one spot in Maryland's batting order, slotting in right behind Shliger in the No. 2 position, Lorusso's RBI numbers have only increased thanks to the consistent hitting of Shliger and Shaw.

"I think they're the best in the country, I don't care what conference you're in," Swope said. "I think when you have those three types of players at the top of your lineup and then you get any other production from the middle down, we can be unstoppable at times."

In the midst of his final year of eligibility and with two tremendous seasons with the Terps under his belt, Lorusso has made the most of his abbreviated tenure with Maryland baseball. After the 2023 college baseball season concludes, he will enter the MLB Draft in hopes of living out his dream of becoming a big leaguer.

"I think he'll be a Double-A manager's favorite player right away," Vaughn said. "You could literally stick Nick in the middle of a Double-A lineup, and he'd go hit .320. There's not a doubt in my mind with the kind of hitter is, and he's gonna make some team really lucky."

Lorusso feels that Maryland has been the best decision for his rise into a potential MLB draft pick. Still, as of now, his only focus is to get the Terps to a third consecutive NCAA regional appearance.

"[The coaches] just talk about the process a bunch, but they also remind me to enjoy every day at the field and not look ahead into the future, because you look too fast, that will go right over your shoulder and you won't enjoy the things that you know really means something and that's this season so far," Lorusso said.