With their postseason hopes fading away, the Blue Devils will look to conclude a successful nonconference slate on the front end of a four-game homestand.
Duke will close out the nonconference portion of its schedule Tuesday at 6 p.m. against Longwood at Jack Coombs Field. After a thrilling six-run comeback in Saturday's 9-7 win at Virginia, the Blue Devils are looking to build on that performance and carry over the offensive approach from their six-run ninth to the rest of the season.
"I felt that guys continued to build on good at-bats from [Saturday night]," head coach Chris Pollard said after Sunday's 4-2 loss against the Cavaliers in the series finale. "You look at the last 10 games, we've played pretty good baseball. You go back to the series win against Virginia Tech and then [N.C. Central] and then Davidson and then we played well at times this weekend. I think guys are regaining some confidence that was lost in April and now the goal is to take it into this last week of the season over these final four games."
Freshman Justin Bellinger had a big hand in the Duke comeback effort Saturday, plating the two go-ahead runs on a single—his third hit of the game. Redshirt sophomore Jalen Phillips accounted for all the offense in Sunday's finale via a sacrifice fly and a solo homer.
The middle of the Duke order gave the Blue Devils plenty of chances to put more runs across the board. Catcher Mike Rosenfeld, right fielder Peter Zyla and designated hitter Cris Perez had two hits apiece and helped Duke (28-21) load the bases with nobody out in the sixth inning. The frame wound up producing just one run on the Phillips sacrifice fly—a missed opportunity that hurt Pollard's club's chances of winning the ballgame.
Longwood (21-28) will test the Blue Devil battery once Duke's pitchers are forced into the stretch. The Lancers employ an aggressive mentality on the basepaths and have swiped 81 bases on the season.
"They're very good offensively, they're among the best base-stealing teams in the country and they've got a young man in Kyri Washington who's a junior outfielder who's going to be a really high draft pick," Pollard said. "They do some things on offense that will put pressure on you."
In 47 games, Washington leads Longwood with a slugging percentage of .530 and is tied for the lead in the Big South with 12 home runs. Colton Konvicka is the speedster on the Lancers' roster, safely stealing 28 bags on 31 attempts, but will not be the only fleet of foot runner on the basepaths Tuesday—Duke senior Andy Perez leads the ACC with 29 stolen bases.
During its midweek nonconference games, the Blue Devils have relied on a small army of hurlers to get through nine innings with each pitcher rarely throwing more than two innings. Although somewhat unorthodox in the face of season-ending injuries to several key pitchers, the strategy has proven to be effective—Duke is 20-3 against non-ACC opponents this season.
Pollard said he will once again piece together Tuesday's game on the mound, with the added constraint of the Wake Forest series. ACC series typically start on Fridays, but Duke's final three-game set against the Demon Deacons will start Thursday at 6 p.m.
"It will impact how much we extend pitchers, because we'll want to make sure that we don't do anything that would prevent guys from being able to come back and pitch the weekend," Pollard said.
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