Coming off of a successful weekend in Charleston as winners in two out of three, Maryland baseball will make the trip down south for a three-game set against Western Carolina.
Maryland won games on the front and back end of last weekend in the Swig and Swine College Classic and sandwiched a loss in between against Ball State. Catcher Alex Calarco led the offensive encore with three homers and eight RBIs, including two homers on Sunday against Mercyhurst, one of which was a grand slam.
Calarco has made a huge adjustment in his swing from a season ago, with a much more spread-out stance in the box. Head Coach Matt Swope, who’s known for his impressive resume of developing hitters through the use of motor preferences, loves the adjustments being made by Calarco who has a frame coaches dream of at 6-foot-5, 250-pounds.
“He’s a very big human,” Swope said. “So a lot of that stuff, you’re making tweaks here and there…it’s never about what I want him to do. It’s about within the motor preferences, how do we find the best fit for you.”
Calarco’s grand salami followed second-year standout Chris Hacopian granny in the season-opener on Friday. Only a sophomore, Hacopian is widely regarded as one of the best 2026 MLB Draft prospects and a top 10 shortstop in the country according to D-1 Baseball regardless of class. His older brother and captain of the Dirty Terps, Eddie Hacopian, has found a new home in the leadoff spot and also earned pre-season honors from D-1 Baseball as a top-five third baseman in all the land.
On the mound, the opening weekend was a longtime in the making for Maryland Baseball and for proclaimed Friday night starter, Kyle McCoy. McCoy missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John Surgery following his true freshman campaign. He got the ball against UAB and impressed in his return. He threw four clean innings allowing one run with four K’s and zero BB’s.
Swope said the next step for McCoy is to continue to get over the mental hurdles of coming back from his injury and build up his confidence, but overall he was very pleased with McCoy’s outing.
“I think, for him to get over that mental hurdle and for him to feel that confidence, it's one thing to throw in a preseason game, or it's one thing to throw in here and see the Velo. It's another thing when the bullets are flying in the adrenaline and all that stuff. Really, the key is, how do you bounce back? Like, how does his body heal a couple [of] days after that? So very encouraging, how he felt, how he threw, held his velo, then he was 91-94 for the most part, held his Velo.”
The staff and lineup held their own last weekend, and the only negative takeaway was the three errors made across three games for Swope and his program. “We got to play clean defense, especially if we're going to pitch really well, like we did, we got to play clean defense.”
Heading down to Western Carolina, McCoy will once again have the ball Friday night against the Catamounts. Maryland enters the series ranked 48 in the RPI while Western Carolina is just outside the top 100.
The Catamounts come into series 1-3 after being swept on opening weekend and picking up a midweek win this past Tuesday against USC Upstate in their home opener.
Maryland, on the other hand, had their midweek postponed to next week due to inclement weather. True freshman standout and Perfect Game All-American Jake Yeager was slotted as the midweek starter to start the season. Many questioned whether Yeager would get opportunities this weekend with the scheduling change, but Swope quickly shut down all quandaries on if the top recruit would debut this weekend.
“We just, right now, we have a lot of depth, a lot of options, and just trying to keep him on the plan. Like I said, when these guys get built up, he threw a bunch of pitches in here yesterday to stay on that track and start next Tuesday. So if we could get them in this weekend on a bullpen day or something, that's fine, but I don't think we really have to force it with all the options.”
First pitch on Friday is set for 3 PM between the Terps and Catamounts, as both teams are looking for their first series victories of the 2025 season.
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