The baseball team faced a dose of reality this spring break when it entered conference play. The Blue Devils started the break by upping their winning streak to 16 games, but ran into trouble later, losing five of their last seven contests.
Even so, head coach Steve Traylor managed to see positives in the Duke dry spell, noting that the Blue Devils (18-7, 1-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) faced two of the top conference teams in Clemson and N.C. State. To make things worse, Duke will face what is considered the second-best team in the ACC, Florida State, this upcoming weekend.
"I'm very, very optimistic about this team," Traylor said. "By no means are we depressed about the stretch that we're going through. I think we've done a great job."
The Blue Devils traveled to Clemson the first weekend of break knowing they were facing one of the top programs in the nation. The Tigers lived up to their reputation by easily sweeping Duke in three straight games--10-0, 8-4, and 9-1.
"You can't measure yourself and your program against Clemson, because they are going to pretty much handle anybody at their place," Traylor said.
The Tigers have one of the nation's best pitching staffs and are also known to have a strong defensive club.
"Clemson was one of the best teams we played since I've been here," senior Jeff Piscorik said.
Even with the lopsided scores, the Blue Devils proved that they could hang with the top teams in the ACC. In Friday's game, Duke only trailed 2-0 in the fifth inning before the Tigers went on a hitting tear in the last half of the game. The next afternoon, freshman Clayton Conner held the Tigers to just one run over five innings before giving up three runs in the bottom of the sixth.
"We were realistic and we knew what we were up against in this stretch," Traylor said. "We had a 2-0 game in the fifth one day and a 1-1 game in the sixth the next day, so we can see that we can play with these people. But you have to play nine strong innings in this conference."
The Blue Devils managed to pick up a non-conference win on Wednesday over Fairfield, 3-1. Sophomore Richard Dishman picked up a much needed win by throwing nearly seven strong innings.
The winning ways continued for the Blue Devils on Friday, when they took the first game of the N.C. State series, 5-3. Junior David Darwin managed to outduel Wolfpack star pitcher Terry Harvey, breaking a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning with three runs.
Duke would end its two-game winning streak the next day, losing 7-6 in a heartbreaking defeat. The Wolfpack would then finish the series blasting the Blue Devils 22-11 on Sunday.
Even losing two out of three from N.C. State did not damper Duke's spirits.
"I think this weekend we played a lot better than we played down in Clemson," Piscorik said. "We swung the bats well and the pitchers were throwing strikes, but they were just hitting them."
The big positive of the spring break games was the ability for Duke to play its bench. All 28 Blue Devils made an appearance in a game over the break, many of which were freshman playing in their first conference action.
"It's such an outstanding freshman class that if we were to field an all freshman team out there, it would be competitive in the ACC," Traylor said.
Two of the freshman even nudged their way into the starting line-up. Designated hitter Hunter Bledsoe and left fielder Michael Fletcher had nice views on the bench up to the Clemson series. Both players had their first starts in the last game of the Clemson series and continued to start during the three games against the Wolfpack.
"The first couple days [at Clemson], I thought we were a little lethargic and not playing with the same kind of enthusiasm we were playing with at the first part of the season," Traylor said. "That's when I said `Let's let Fletch and Bledsoe play."
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