After a weekend sweep of Princeton, Duke went on the road looking to keep up its momentum heading into the first weekend of conference play.
Although the Blue Devils were not able to finish off Liberty, an offensive explosion in the fourth inning at home against Mount St. Mary’s kept them at better than .500 heading into this weekend’s ACC series against Virginia Tech.
Duke fell to the Flames 8-4 Tuesday afternoon in Lynchburg, Va. at Liberty Baseball Stadium, before coming home and knocking off the Mountaineers Wednesday 10-3. Left fielder Jimmy Herron continued his hot start to the season, hitting safely in both games to extend his current streak to nine games, and a trio of freshmen turned in impressive performances in the Blue Devils’ victory against Mount St. Mary's.
“With regards to wins and losses, it honestly is more about us playing better baseball,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said Wednesday. “It’s about learning from what we did poorly last night. We made those adjustments. Today we walked one guy, we went to very few three ball counts, so that’s a good progression in terms of developing into the team I think we’re going to become.”
The Mountaineers (0-8) opened the scoring on a Vaughn Parker double in the top of the first to score two against Blue Devil freshman Graeme Stinson in his first start of the season. Stinson settled down to record three strikeouts in the second inning and another two in the third, giving him eight in the first three innings alone.
Duke then got on the board on an RBI groundout to second by sophomore Griffin Conine that scored Herron, who led off the inning with a double. The Blue Devils leveled the score in the second on another infield grounder—this one a fielder’s choice from junior Max Miller to score Justin Bellinger and tie the game at two.
Mount St. Mary’s struck again in the third on a wild pitch from Stinson that briefly gave the Mountaineers the lead. Although Stinson threw a wild pitch in his scoreless inning of work against Princeton Saturday and tossed four more Wednesday, he preserved his excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio with 10 punch outs and zero walks in his four-inning outing.
“I was really impressed. We didn’t make some plays, but he kept pitching through it,” Pollard said. “He kept pitching to contact, he didn’t shy away from the strike zone, he didn’t let it rattle him. I thought it was a great outing.”
The bottom of the fourth was the pivotal inning for Duke, which got off to a quick start as junior Jack Labosky roped a ball that landed just in front of the diving right fielder, allowing the Blue Devil third baseman to get on base with a leadoff double. After sophomore Kennie Taylor singled to put runners at the corners with one out, designated hitter Jalen Phillips popped out on a spectacular recovery catch by the centerfielder.
With two outs and Miller at the plate, Mount St. Mary’s starter Seth Schubert had a chance to escape the jam. But Miller worked the count to 3-1 before Schubert bounced his final offering in front of catcher Will Enrico—who raced to flip it to the plate but was too late to nab Labosky as he slid under the tag to tie the game at three.
Shortstop Zach Kone followed and put Duke ahead on a sharp grounder to the left side to score Taylor and give the Blue Devils their first lead of the game. After another Herron hit scored a run, Chris Dutra’s looping RBI single knocked Schubert out of the game.
“We can compete a lot better. That’s the reality. We did a good job there in the fourth when we put together the five-run inning with two outs,” Pollard said. “We have to do a better job in those moments of stringing together better at-bats, staying in the moment and not trying to get big because we’ve got a lead. We have to stay with what works, get a baserunner on base, move him over, score him and do the little things that win ballgames.”
Duke (8-7) got off to a hot start on the road at Liberty Tuesday, ripping six hits in the first two innings to snag an early 1-0 and push to a 4-2 lead in the second after a two-run homer by Herron.
But the Flames (8-4) chipped away at Duke’s lead in the third and fifth innings before blowing the game open with a three-run sixth. With graduate student Nick Hendrix on the mound, Liberty used a walk and two hits to claim the lead and never looked back, snapping Duke's three-game winning streak.
Despite knocking out starter Vinnie Tarantola in the third inning, the Blue Devils could not scratch out a run against the Flames' bullpen to get back in the ballgame.
“Last night we gave them a lot of free offense on the bases, we gave them a lot of free offense from the mound,” Pollard said. “We took a team that was hitting .238 and turned them into a good offensive team.”
The Blue Devils will now look ahead to their weekend series at home against Virginia Tech and the start of ACC play. Duke will take the field Friday at 6 p.m. for the first of three games between the teams.
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