Dive attempt comes up short as 2-out triple lifts Clemson past Duke baseball

The Blue Devils took a 2-1 lead into the ninth inning

<p>Sophomore Peter Zyla's triple in the second inning staked Duke to an early 1-0 lead, but Clemson rallied for two in the ninth to even the series.&nbsp;</p>

Sophomore Peter Zyla's triple in the second inning staked Duke to an early 1-0 lead, but Clemson rallied for two in the ninth to even the series. 

A heavy wind blowing from left to right field at Jack Coombs Field took several hits and maybe a couple of home runs away from No. 21 Clemson on booming fly balls to left field Saturday afternoon.

But with the game on the line, Mother Nature pushed a line drive just out of the reach of Duke’s Evan Dougherty in center field.

Junior Chris Okey smacked an 0-2 pitch into the gap in right-center for a go-ahead triple with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, lifting the Tigers past the Blue Devils 3-2 to snap Duke’s four-game winning streak.  Dougherty dove for what would have been a sensational game-ending catch, but could not reel it in as the ball kept carrying away from him.

“We left the pitch a little bit elevated, and [Okey] did a good job of taking advantage of it,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “The way the wind was, it just kept pushing that ball away from Dougherty in center field. He made a heck of an effort to cover as much ground as he did and he came up maybe just a foot or two short.”

The Blue Devils (16-15, 5-9 in the ACC) were a strike away from ending the game with the bases empty in the ninth when sophomore Chase Pinder hit a ground ball to shortstop Zack Kone. The freshman had made a few difficult plays look easy to get Duke out of a few threats early in the game, but his throw bounced a few feet in front of first base and glanced off Justin Bellinger’s glove to give the Tigers new life.

Blue Devil closer Mitch Stallings then walked freshman Jordan Greene on four pitches to bring Okey—a .342 hitter—to the plate.

“It was a tough play there with Pinder getting down the line—[he's a] good runner. Zack had to get rid of it quick,” Pollard said. “Probably what hurt us more than anything was the walk to Greene. We’ve got to force him in that situation to swing the bat rather than pitching to Okey.”

Duke scored both of its runs and registered three of its four hits in the second inning, with Kone hitting a one-out single and scoring on a triple by sophomore Peter Zyla that dropped just inside the right-field line. Sophomore Michael Smiciklas walked to put runners on the corners, but Clemson starter Charlie Barnes snagged a sharp grounder by classmate Max Miller and caught Zyla off third base in a rundown for the second out of the frame.

Freshman Jimmy Herron flared an RBI double down the right-field line to plate Smiciklas, but the Blue Devils did not put a runner in scoring position the rest of the way.

Barnes threw 114 pitches and allowed just seven baserunners in eight innings to get the win for the Tigers (23-8, 8-6), and junior southpaw Pat Krall pitched a perfect ninth for his second save of the year.

“[Barnes] really settled in and pitched well for them. We strung together some good at-bats there in the second inning, some good two-strike at-bats,” Pollard said. “He missed with some two-strikes pitches back over the heart of the plate, we took advantage and really from that point forward, he just didn’t make many mistakes.”

Clemson threatened nearly every inning and left 12 runners on base as Duke pitched out of several jams to maintain its lead until the ninth inning. Graduate student Trent Swart made his first ACC start in three weeks after dealing with elbow irritation and struggled with command in the third inning, hitting Pinder in the back and walking Okey to load the bases.

Pollard turned to graduate student Kellen Urbon in relief, and he struck out cleanup hitter Seth Beer—who went 0-for-3 to snap a 26-game hitting streak—and induced a fly-out to keep the Tigers scoreless.

Clemson pushed a run across in the fifth inning after Greene singled to left and Okey roped a single up the middle through Urbon’s legs to set the table. Sophomore Reed Rohlman blooped an RBI single that dropped in shallow left field to cut the Blue Devil lead in half.

Urbon retired six straight batters in the sixth and seventh to finish an impressive outing, but sophomore Jack Labosky ran into trouble in the eighth before pitching out of the jam. Rohlman doubled with one out and advanced to third on a weak groundout to Bellinger, but Herron made a lunging backhanded grab on a fly ball to deep left field off the bat of junior Eli White that died in the wind.

“Ultimately, we played really well defensively and pitched really well. Kellen Urbon threw a great ballgame—came in and picked up Trent there in the third inning,” Pollard said. “We made a lot of good plays to get off the field—we just didn’t make one last play to get off the field there [in the ninth]. It stings, but we’ve got to be tough enough to flush it out of our system and be ready to win a series tomorrow.”

The rubber match of the series is set to begin Sunday at 1 p.m.

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