From the looks of the scoreboard at Jack Coombs Field--which announced a 11-3 Duke win--it would seem that the baseball team had few problems with the Howard Bison. But looks can be deceiving, as Tuesday's game was anything but easy.
"That was a painful win," head coach Steve Traylor said. "We were just lethargic coming off of Florida State [over the weekend], and I guess that was to be expected.
"Fortunately, we stayed close and they made a couple of mistakes, and we made a couple of hits to take the lead. I'm just glad to get that one under our belts."
Duke (21-9) is currently 4-0 against the Bison this season, since the Blue Devils won three games against Howard Feb. 5-6. During that series, the Blue Devils slaughtered the Bison, winning the three games by a combined score of 43-3.
But Tuesday was different. Duke trailed early in the game, falling behind 3-2 in the bottom of the fourth inning after making two costly errors.
"Howard came out swinging the bats," senior shortstop Jeff Piscorik said. "They were real aggressive and they were hitting the ball. We came out a little flat against them, but we turned it on when we needed to."
Duke picked up two runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 4-3 lead--a lead it never lost.
The Blue Devils broke the game open two innings later. Clinging to a three-run advantage, Duke scored five runs on just three hits and one costly Bison error.
With the bases loaded and no outs, third baseman Chris Hammond stroked a single to left field. Bison left fielder Mike Pettigrew did not field the ball cleanly, allowing two runs to score. Then the throw into third base was off line and rolled to the backstop, and a third runner slid across home plate.
The Blue Devil rally finally ended two batters later, when Mike King lined out to the third baseman, who caught Hammond off guard for a double play.
One of the positives for the Blue Devils was the pitching performance of junior David Darwin and freshman Berry Brooks. Both hurlers experienced sub-par outings against Florida State, and each managed to redeem himself against the Bison.
Darwin started the game and threw seven innings, yielding just two earned runs. Brooks then finished the game with four of his six outs coming on strikeouts.
"It was good to get Darwin out there again, since he only threw 30 pitches on Friday and we didn't want him to go a week without throwing again," Traylor said. "I think he worked some things out.
"Brooks had an appearance against Florida State that wasn't quite what he hoped for, so it was good to get him back out there.
"We needed everything that happened to happen. It was a close game. It was really what the doctor ordered."
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