After suffering a disappointing home loss to No. 9 Oregon State on March 24, No. 12 USC baseball charged into a key road series against a spiraling Maryland squad hoping to bounce back. 

While the weekend series in College Park, Maryland, featured highs and lows — particularly with inconsistencies in the pitching staff — the Trojans (27-3, 10-2 Big Ten) managed to secure a series win, taking two of three games against the Terrapins (13-15, 2-7) for their seventh straight series victory.

“The ability to come back and on the road [get a] winning series is always gonna be the goal,” Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz said in a postgame interview Sunday. “To get out of here with a series victory, we’ll take it.”

USC fends off late-game comeback for first win

The Trojans started hot on offense in Friday’s opener, thanks to a four-run first inning and a six-run third, finding themselves sitting comfortably in the driver’s seat with an 11-2 lead after the fourth inning. 

However, the Terrapins’ bats made sure that the game was far from over. Home runs for Maryland in the seventh and eighth innings were key contributions to the team’s eight unanswered runs to finish the game, as the USC bullpen narrowly kept the floodgates from opening.

Redshirt junior pitcher Adam Troy picked up his eighth save of the season with a gutsy performance to shut the door on Friday, tasked with getting out of a bases-loaded, two-out situation in the eighth inning. After allowing a run to come in on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 11-10, he managed to force a fly out to end the inning, then picked up an easy 1-2-3 inning in the ninth to close out the win. Troy’s eight saves on the season are tied for second in the NCAA.

Getting consistency out of the starting pitching unit will be a point of emphasis for the Trojans moving forward. Junior left-handed pitcher Mason Edwards, who had been stellar all season, allowed four runs across 4.1 innings in his start on Friday, and a season-high six walks. Prior to Friday’s start, Edwards had allowed just one combined run across 36 innings of work to begin his 2026 campaign.

Despite the unusually rocky performance against Maryland, Edwards still has a mere 0.67 ERA and has racked up 74 strikeouts, which both rank first in the Big Ten. His outstanding start to the season led to Perfect Game naming him Midseason Pitcher of the Year.

Bats unable to mount comeback in Saturday loss

Despite an effort to mount a ninth-inning comeback in game two, the Trojans were unable to dig themselves out of a three-run deficit against the Terrapins, ultimately falling 6-4. Maryland redshirt sophomore starting pitcher Evan Smith, who had posted a rough 10.22 ERA through his first four starts on the season, held USC to just two runs on three hits in his impressive five-inning outing, his best of the season.

On the other side, USC sophomore pitcher Grant Govel continued his brilliant 2026 season and set the tone with a six-inning quality start, bringing his ERA to 1.20, which ranks second in the Big Ten behind Edwards. 

However, Govel’s teammate, freshman pitcher Diego Velazquez, was unable to keep the game knotted at 3 in the seventh inning, giving up three earned runs on two home runs in his single inning of work. As a result, Velazquez took the loss and moved to 2-1 on the season, having tossed 7 1/3 scoreless innings to begin his season before Saturday’s rough outing.

The bats remained quiet for most of the game, aside from a strong showing from junior infielder Adrian Lopez. Lopez contributed an RBI double in the seventh inning and followed that up with a second RBI double in the ninth, attempting to spark a late-game rally. He was the only Trojan to notch a multi-hit game Saturday.

Trojans cap off series with mercy rule victory

After a split in games one and two, the Trojans came into Sunday’s pivotal rubber match looking to avoid suffering their first series loss of the 2026 season. And backed by an offensive explosion in the first two innings, USC was up to the task, taking home a dominant 14-4 mercy rule victory. 

The Trojans began the game by taking advantage of a wild performance from Maryland’s starting pitcher, sophomore Jake Yeager, who gave up four walks and three runs in his only inning of work. USC’s offense stayed on the gas from there, reaching 10 runs by the fourth inning and clinching the run-rule victory in the eighth.

Sophomore catcher Augie Lopez powered the offense in game three with a career day at the plate, blasting home runs in both the second and seventh innings on his way to a career-high total of six RBIs. Lopez’s strong performance followed up his fourth-inning home run in game two, giving him a team-high six homers on the season.

“He is a good-looking young hitter, and part of his development is being able to get the ball in the air and having good approaches,” Stankiewicz said of Lopez. “He had a nice approach all weekend. … That young man’s gonna be a big part of our offense hopefully for a while, so [I’m] just encouraged by what we are seeing at the plate from Augie.”

After outlasting UC Santa Barbara (16-9, 5-4 Big West), 7-6, on Tuesday, the Trojans will head to Westwood for a crucial three-game series against crosstown rival No. 1 UCLA (25-2, 12-0 Big Ten).