With two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth, it looked as if Davidson was going to come away with a walk-off win and not give Duke another turn at bat.
Instead, it was the Blue Devils who produced a clutch two-out hit to escape with an extra-inning victory.
Left fielder Jalen Phillips knocked an RBI double down the right field line in the top of the 10th inning to plate Mike Rosenfeld and give Duke a 5-4 victory against the Wildcats Tuesday night at Wilson Field in Davidson, N.C. The extra-inning heroics from Phillips—who had been hitless in his four previous at-bats—led the Blue Devils to their third straight win for the first time since mid-March.
“It’s a good reminder why you keep grinding and why you don’t carry one at-bat with you to the plate in your next at-bat,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “Jalen didn’t have great at-bats early in the game and he obviously comes up with the biggest hit in the ballgame. That’s why in the game of baseball, you have to be good at having a next-pitch mentality.”
Before the game reached extra frames, Davidson (23-19) had a chance to earn a win in their last at-bat against reliever Sarkis Ohanian. The senior entered with two outs in the sixth inning and blew away the Wildcat batters, allowing just one hit as he stood on the mound after quickly recording the first two outs of the ninth.
But then Davidson broke through against the right-hander with back-to-back singles that put freshman Alex Acosta in position to come through with a game-winning hit. But the rookie—who entered the day sporting a .288 batting average—lofted a fly ball to left field on a 2-2 pitch that settled into the glove of Phillips, sending the game to extras.
Ohanian (4-1) picked up the win for the Blue Devils (27-19) with a superb effort out of the pen, tossing 3 1/3 shutout innings and racking up six strikeouts. The Boynton Beach, Fla., native did not walk a batter—improving his season strikeout-to-walk ratio to 55:6—and threw 52 pitches despite pitching just two days earlier against N.C. Central.
“We talked about [pulling Ohanian in the ninth inning], but he had really pitched Acosta well in the first at-bat,” Pollard said. “He had seen Acosta already and struck Acosta out and it didn’t appear that he was seeing that slider, and so we made the decision to stay with Sarkis right there after the two base hits, and he made some good pitches in that spot.”
After using nine pitchers in Sunday’s doubleheader sweep against the Eagles, six different Duke hurlers trotted out to the mound Tuesday night. Freshman Jack Labosky earned the starting nod and put two quick zeroes up on the board before running into trouble in the third frame—but not before his offense had staked him to a 2-0 lead.
Labosky’s fellow freshmen got the scoring started in the top of the third against Wildcat starter Nick Neitzel. First baseman Justin Bellinger led off with a triple—part of a two-hit, two-run night for the Weston, Mass., native—and was brought home on a sacrifice fly from senior Andy Perez. The Blue Devils tacked on another run in the inning when freshman Peter Zyla continued his recent hot streak and drove in center fielder Evan Dougherty with a two-out double.
The 2-0 Duke advantage did not hold up for long, though. Labosky recorded the first out in the bottom half of the inning but then yielded four consecutive extra-base hits—including junior David Daniels’ ninth home run of the season, a two-run blast—that brought Pollard out to the mound with his team now trailing 3-2.
Daniels finished the night 2-for-5 at the plate and combined with the other three batters atop the Davidson lineup to go 9-for-20. Pollard said his squad was well aware of the damage the quartet—Daniels, Sam Foy, Ryan Lowe and Lee Miller—could cause, but there was not much his pitchers could do to avoid their scorching hot bats.
“They’re just really dialed in right now. We knew that going into the ballgame,” Pollard said. “They stayed hot. Going into today’s game over their last 30 at-bats, those guys were batting about .500 combined. They’re all red-hot right now, and that’s really the heart and soul of their lineup.”
6-foot-10 lefty James Ziemba relieved Labosky and managed to limit the damage to three runs, and the Duke offense once again picked up the pitching staff. Bellinger and Dougherty were right in the middle of the action again, coming through with back-to-back run-scoring hits with two outs in the top of the fourth that put the Blue Devils back ahead 4-3.
“Those guys are getting heated up. Justin Bellinger had really good at-bats in our scrimmage on Friday, he had really good at-bats in the doubleheader on Sunday. He’s really in a good place,” Pollard said. “Evan had a really good at-bat today too and drove the ball in the opposite gap, obviously that gives him a chance to use his speed. [Those were] two big two-out RBI hits by those guys.”
Duke now has a few days off before heading to Charlottesville, Va., for a critical ACC series against Virginia this weekend. With just two conference series remaining, the Cavaliers sit 2.5 games ahead of the Blue Devils in the Coastal Division as Duke is currently on the outside looking in at the 10-team ACC tournament field.
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