Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

In Tuesday night's win over Coppin State, it took the Terrapin baseball team the entire game to score seven runs.

In last night's 12-3 victory over Mount St. Mary's, it only took about 15 minutes to do the same.

An 8-hit, 7-run first inning, which included back-to-back home runs from junior left fielder Gerry Spessard and sophomore right fielder A.J. Casario, secured the team's 20th win of the year.

The early offense - the first four Terps collected hits - was in stark contrast to the game the night before against Coppin State.

"Any time you can get on a team early, it gets things going a little bit," senior catcher Chad Durakis said. "When you're coming off a big ACC series on the weekend, sometimes for these midweek games you come out kind of asleep."

"That's the best we've swung the bats all year long at the beginning of the game," coach Terry Rupp said.

Six Terp pitchers combined to give up three Mountaineer runs on nine hits.

Sophomore pitcher Ian Schwalenberg allowed a two-run homer by Mountaineer first baseman Josh Vittek in the third inning, but the Terps (20-14) responded with senior center fielder Nick Jower's two-RBI double in the same inning, which made the score 9-2.

Mount St. Mary's threatened to cut into the lead in the fifth inning with the bases loaded, no outs and Vittek up at the plate. But freshman Adam Kolarek got Vittek to ground into a force out at home plate.

Junior Dan Gentzler then came in and induced a double play to finish the inning off.

The Terps improved their record to 9-0 when they score nine or more runs and won their 11th consecutive game over an out-of-conference team.

The Terps say they are playing the best baseball they've played all season, and they have last night's offensive outburst to back up their claim.

"Everybody is just getting better and better. We're definitely playing our best baseball of the season," Durakis said. "Things are really starting to come together."

Of course, a rare first-inning rally like the one the Terps put up last night doesn't hurt matters.

"It definitely helps. When the leadoff guy gets a hit, it really gets the flow going," Spessard said. "Hitting is contagious, and we really broke out in that inning - it was great."

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