Terps baseball triumphs in the Big Ten championship

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — No. 14 Maryland won its first Big Ten Championship in baseball on Friday evening as the Terps beat Purdue, 187, at Alexander Field. The Terps won the outright Big Ten title and will be the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. The Terps stand at 18-5 in the conference and add to its best record in program history, moving to 44-10.

The Terps last won a conference championship in 1971 when the Terps won the ACC. Overall, this is the fifth conference title for the Terps, as they also won the ACC in 1965 and 1970 and the Southern Conference in 1936. Maryland’s last outright conference title in baseball was in 1965.

Matt Shaw smashed his 20th of the season to put the Terps up for good in the sixth inning, making it 7-5 at the time. Shaw went 4-for-5 with two homers, four runs scored and five RBIs and now has 63 RBIs this season to go along with his 21 home runs, second in the Big Ten .

Chris Alleyne went 2-for4 with two homers and five RBIs as he leads the Big Ten in homers with 22 and RBIs with 73.

Freshman Ian Petrutz went 3-for-5 with a home run — for the fourth game in a row — and three RBIs. Troy Schreffler Jr., and Kevin Keister also drove in runs. Luke Shliger also hit a home run to give the Terps six homers in the game — the third time this season they blasted six long balls.

On the mound, Nick Dean earned the win to move to 6-2 throwing the first five innings. Nigel Belgrave pitched two innings in relief. David Falco Jr., finished off the eighth and ninth, including recording the final out to clinch the championship with a strikeout.