Scares On and Off the Field

By Rob Galligan and Anthony Papio

Special to CollegeBaseballInsider.com

Maryland juniors Rob Galligan (left) and Anthony Papio will contribute a journal to CollegeBaseballInsider.com for the 2015 season. Galligan has made 14 appearances out of the bullpen over his first two seasons and lists Muhammad Ali as his sports hero. Papio started 53 games in 2014, hitting .271 with nine doubles, two homers and 29 RBI and lists Pat Tillman as his sports hero.

The weather caused Tuesday’s at Liberty to be postponed to Wednesday. After falling to a 4-0 deficit, the bullpen was brought into the game in the third inning and was lights out. Selmer, Drossner, Robinson, Morris, and Mooney combined for 6.1 innings, allowing no runs and four hits. With that being said, the offense came alive and scored in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and three runs in the ninth for a huge comeback win. Kengo Kawahara, Anthony Papio, Kevin Martir, Justin Morris, and Jamal Wade all were keys contributors to the come from behind win. Despite a crazy game, the drive back to Maryland might have been crazier. For some reason, the bus driver took a different route home through the mountain-like terrain. The driver was doing about 30 mph around turns near cliffs. Most, if not all, of the players were nauseous and on the verge of throwing up. The bus ride took almost five hours to get home and finally we got back to our rooms by 1:30 a.m. With that being said, the bus drive would’ve been that much worse if we did not win that game.

This past weekend was an historic weekend for Maryland baseball because we hosted a powerhouse west coast team, Cal State Fullerton, for the first time. Our administration and staff wanted to show off a little, so they had a live DJ for pre-game, band and cheerleaders for Friday night’s game. It was a great night, because we had our biggest crowd of the year watching two of the best pitchers in the country face off (Maryland’s Mike Shawaryn against CSF’s Thomas Eshelman).

Saturday was one of the scariest days in any of our careers. On the second pitch of the game, Tayler Stiles took a line drive to the head. After 20-30 minutes, Tayler was finally taken of by a stretcher. We can’t thank our trainers, Maryland staff, and local fire department and EMS workers enough. Due to their tremendous work, Stiles was given the necessary care and attention. He is in great hands and doing better.

After Stiles went down, I was thrown off guard when I was told to go down to the bullpen and start warming up. Once I was warmed up, I went out to the game mound and called in the infielders (Justin Morris, Brandon Lowe, Kevin Smith, Jose Cuas) and catcher (Kevin Martir) to see how they were doing. Every guy was devastated and had tears in their eyes. After hugs and prayers, the six of us agreed that the game was for Tayler and play as hard as we can for him. Obviously, the first couple of innings were extremely emotional for everyone because there were unanswered questions and a lot of unknown. Every couple of innings, we were given updates about Tayler and you could see everyone perk up every time an update came in.

This past week was a mental, physical and emotional roller coaster for everyone. We finished up 3-1 on the week, (win against Liberty 6-4, win against Cal State Fullerton 2-1, win against Cal State Fullerton 9-5, loss to Cal State Fullerton 1-0 in extra innings). In addition to the ones above, there are a few notable performances on the week.

•       Mike Shawaryn improved to 9-0 and earned his fourth B1G Pitcher of the Week award after not allowing a run, striking out 13 over eight innings of work against Cal St Fullerton.

•       Rob Galligan earned his first career win after six innings of work allowing one run, six hits, and struck out six.

•       Jake Drossner was absolutely lights out. Drossner pitched eight innings of shutout baseball while striking out six and allowing one walk and three hits.

•       Kevin Mooney earned the save on Wednesday and Alex Robinson earned the save on Friday.

•       Anthony Papio hit his fifth home run of the year on Saturday

•       Kevin Martir went 5 for 12 with three RBI over the four games

This upcoming week, the Terps travel to VCU on Tuesday, host VCU on Wednesday, and travel to Purdue for our fifth Big Ten Conference weekend. We are looking forward to a great week of baseball and continue to improve and build momentum for the end of the year.

Go Terps!

#BP15

Rob Galligan & Anthony Papio