Following victories in its first three games against Princeton in Durham, Duke entered the series finale Sunday in pursuit of its first series sweep of the season.
Fueled by six scoreless innings from starter Ryan Day, the Blue Devils got the sweep they were looking for after defeating Princeton 6-1 Sunday afternoon at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Duke allowed the Tigers to score just five runs during the series and its starters lasted at least five innings in each contest, an encouraging sign for a unit with four new weekend starters that will be tested by ACC talent starting Friday.
“He showed a lot of toughness,” Blue Devil head coach Chris Pollard said of Day's effort. “He did a good job of competing and staying in the moment. He threw a lot of strikes, forced a lot of ground ball contact, which is what we want to see out of him, and made some key pitches when they had runners in scoring position.”
Despite getting in trouble early in many innings, Day was excellent when he needed timely pitches most Sunday. The Phelan, Calif., native fired six strong innings for Duke (7-6), striking out five and stranding five men on base. Although Day allowed seven hits on the day, Princeton (0-4) was unable to muster any offense against the right-handed starter, going just 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
In addition, the Blue Devil bullpen was outstanding in relief, with senior Karl Blum, junior Luke Whitten and freshman Matt Mervis combining to pitch three frames without allowing a single hit.
Although Whitten threw three wild pitches in the top of the eighth inning to let Princeton notch its only run, the outcome had been decided beforehand once Duke's offense found a rhythm in the third inning.
After failing to get on base in the first two innings, Duke strung together five straight hits to lead off the third frame, including a two-run double by sophomore Kennie Taylor and an RBI single by sophomore Griffin Conine as the Blue Devils took a 4-0 lead.
“One of the things that we’ve done well in these last three ballgames is we’ve clustered our hits together,” Pollard said. “We’ve gotten good at-bats back-to-back-to-back and when you do that and you can run like we can, you can score runs.”
Sunday’s series finale marked the third consecutive game with a big inning for Duke. The Blue Devils piled on five runs in the third inning of Saturday's first game before exploding for another five-run frame in the sixth inning of Saturday's second game. Duke’s offense showed some promise for the first time this season after driving in 22 runs in the last three games of this weekend's set—the Blue Devils had cleared the five-run mark just once before this weekend.
Much of the offensive success can be attributed to the balance up and down the Duke lineup. This balance was on full display once again Sunday, as the bottom third of the lineup shone in the victory. Freshman Erikson Nichols had two doubles, scoring on each of them, and Taylor and sophomore Zack Kone also found success in the series finale to build momentum ahead of the team's ACC opener.
Following the four-game sweep of the Tigers, the Blue Devils will travel to Lynchburg, Va., Tuesday to take on Liberty at 4 p.m. before returning to Durham to host Mount St. Mary’s Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the first of nine consecutive home games for Duke. The Blue Devils are getting closer and closer to full strength with numerous injured players close to a return, and host Virginia Tech this weekend for a three-game league series.
“We hope to have our starting nine healthy heading into the first ACC weekend,” Pollard said. “We haven’t had our starting nine on the field together yet since the season started. If we can stay healthy this week, we may be able to do that for the first time against Virginia Tech.”
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Digital Strategy Director for Vol. 115, Michael was previously Sports Editor for Vol. 114 and Assistant Blue Zone Editor for Vol. 113. Michael is a senior majoring in Statistical Science and is interested in data analytics and using data to make insights.