Big sixth inning carries Duke baseball past Liberty

<p>Sophomore Justin Bellinger went 3-for-4 at the plate and delivered a key two-run single in the pivotal sixth inning to help Duke defeat Liberty 6-1 Tuesday.</p>

Sophomore Justin Bellinger went 3-for-4 at the plate and delivered a key two-run single in the pivotal sixth inning to help Duke defeat Liberty 6-1 Tuesday.

Duke’s bats caught fire in the final innings against the Flames Tuesday night, rallying past Liberty to help the Blue Devils win their second straight game.

Duke did most of its damage with a four-run sixth inning in a 6-1 victory at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, avenging a 1-0 loss to the Flames Feb. 27. Sophomore Justin Bellinger was 3-for-4 with two RBIs as classmate Jack Labosky and freshman catcher Chris Proctor each added two hits, and six Blue Devil pitchers combined to hold Liberty to just three hits.

“It was really a solid performance in every facet for us,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “It was a really good offensive effort by our club there in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings…. I told our guys there, I said, ‘Let’s let that be the coming-out party for our offense.’”

Proctor legged out an infield single on a ground ball to shortstop Dalton Britt to lead off the pivotal sixth inning, and designated hitter Cris Perez bunted him to second base. Labosky smacked an RBI double down the left-field line to even the score at one, and a walk to pinch-hitter Michael Smickilas signaled the end of Flame starter Jack DeGroat’s night.

Junior right-hander Shane Quarterley nearly escaped the inning unscathed when freshman Zack Kone lined out to Britt for the second out and Duke (12-13) almost ran into an out to end the frame.

Sophomore Peter Zyla lined a single into left field, and Labosky was held at third, but the throw from the cutoff man went to second base, where Smickilas barely dove back safely after rounding the bag and taking several steps toward third. Liberty head coach Jim Toman trotted out of the dugout to argue the call, but to no avail.

The wheels came off for Liberty (16-11) after the near-miscue, as Labosky scored on a wild pitch in the dirt to give the Blue Devils the lead and Bellinger broke the game open with a two-run single to center field that put Duke ahead 4-1.

“I’m just thinking, 'Drive something hard.' He had a good slider, too, so just expecting to get something with a lot of movement, wait late, see that movement, and just try to drive it as hard as you can up the middle,” Bellinger said. “That’s where they’re not playing, so I might as well hit it there.”

Duke tacked on insurance runs in the seventh and eighth frames after freshman Jimmy Herron led off the seventh with a double and Smickilas followed suit in the eighth. Both runners advanced to third on sacrifice bunts and scored on sacrifice flies.

Liberty scored its lone run in the top of the fifth inning, when senior Nick Hendrix entered in relief for the Blue Devils. Senior Austin Bream walked to lead off the frame, and junior Eric Grabowski drilled a line drive to deep center field that just escaped a lunging Herron. Bream came around to score and Grabowski ended up at third with a stand-up triple that gave the Flames an early 1-0 lead.

Hendrix minimized the damage, though, inducing a bunt pop-up for the first out of the inning before one of Duke’s most impressive defensive plays of the year. Leadoff hitter D.J. Artis hit a fly ball to Griffin Conine in left field, and the freshman fired an accurate throw home on one hop just ahead of Grabowski as Proctor applied the tag at the plate to end the inning.

“It was a great job of picking up a teammate—a really good individual effort defensively. Griffin’s got a big-time arm and he showed it off there on that play,” Pollard said. “It looked like it was potentially going to be a big inning where they score the run and they’ve got a runner at third and nobody out, and to play through that and keep it to a one-run game kept us within striking distance.”

Liberty did not have many other threats to score, fanning 10 times during the contest as 6-foot-10 southpaw James Ziemba and freshman Hunter Davis struck out the side in the second and third frames.

Ziemba and Davis held the Flames hitless through the first four innings, and sophomore right-hander Ryan Day got the win with two innings of one-hit ball after the Blue Devils took the lead in the sixth.

“We really pitched well tonight, and I was really impressed with all of our guys. It was kind of mission accomplished,” Pollard said. “We got our relief corps the work they needed going into the weekend and everybody was efficient.”

Duke plays at Liberty for this year’s rubber match April 19, and the Blue Devils next take the field Friday night at 7 p.m. in Atlanta against No. 23 Georgia Tech.

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