On Friday and Saturday, the baseball team engineered heartstopping comeback wins over Maryland. Sunday, with high expectations for another victory, the Blue Devils were unable to rebound for a third win, missing out on a sweep of the series.
In their two wins, the Blue Devils (24-10, 4-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) were led by solid performances from their starting pitchers and timely hitting late in the games. On Friday, senior Craig Starman pitched eight strong innings, giving up six runs on eight hits. Starman gave up an early home run in the first inning, then settled down to allow only two runs over the next seven innings.
After Maryland (10-18, 1-11 in the ACC) took a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning, the Blue Devils began their first comeback of the weekend. They scored three runs in the seventh, led from a two-run single by junior first baseman Mike King, who was 3-for-5 on the day.
Duke then added two important insurance runs in the eighth inning. The Terrapins scored two runs in the ninth, bringing the final score to 8-6.
"We're just a team that has to battle," head coach Steve Traylor said. "We're not the most talented team in the world, and we're not the most experienced team. We're just a team that has to go out and play hard and have a great attitude and just battle."
On Saturday, junior Scott Schoeneweis took the mound for the Blue Devils. Schoeneweis pitched six and two-thirds innings, giving up only one earned run. Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, three errors in the fifth inning created five Maryland runs, handing the Terps a 5-2 lead. Maryland added a run in the eighth to take a 6-2 lead. Duke was still optimistic even though they were down four runs.
"We were losing by four runs in the eighth inning and everybody knew we were going to win the game," senior outfielder Luis Duarte said. "We came back and we did win it."
In the bottom of the eighth, the Blue Devils began to claw back. A two-run home run by King, an RBI double by freshman catcher Gregg Maluchnik and an RBI sacrifice fly by freshman center fielder Adam Geis tied the game as the teams headed into the ninth inning.
Junior Brian Casey shut down Maryland in the top of the ninth. Freshman designated hitter Michael Fletcher led off the bottom of the ninth with a walk. He advanced to second when senior shortstop Jeff Piscorik was hit by a pitch with one out. Duarte singled to right field to score Fletcher and give Duke the 7-6 win.
"I was fortunate to find a couple of holes at the right time," Duarte said. "I had a good hit in Saturday's game. Luckily, it made the difference, so I'm happy about that."
The Blue Devils entered Sunday's game with hopes of sweeping the Terps. Duke started the game off with a solid first inning, scoring three runs. The catalyst in that inning was Maluchnik, who had a two-RBI triple. Maluchnik went 3-for-5 on the day.
"Maluchnik has had a phenomenal year," Traylor said. "He is just a great player who's going to do nothing but get better."
After their outburst in the first inning, the Blue Devils were shut down the rest of the day by Terp starter Patrick Baker. Baker baffled the Duke hitters for eight innings, giving up only four runs on eight hits and recording seven strikeouts.
After a slow start, Maryland came back with two runs in the third and fourth innings and added three more in the fifth. Starter David Darwin had a solid performance for the Blue Devils, but was hurt by three Duke errors.
The Blue Devils were down 7-4 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. Duke had kept its chances alive with the fine pitching of Casey, who went four and two-thirds innings, allowing three hits and no runs while striking out six Terrapins.
In the bottom of the ninth, Duke attempted to make its third comeback of the weekend. Piscorik started things off with a one-out walk. The walk was number 109 in his career, giving him the all-time Duke career walk record.
Duarte was then hit by a pitch, giving the Blue Devils men on first and second with one out. King hit a fly ball to deep center field that was caught, but Piscorik tagged and went to third on the play.
"King's hit some home runs for us and hit the ball hard," Traylor said. "He almost had another one there. The wind was blowing about 25 miles an hour and he hit it to the deepest part of the park and still almost got it out."
With two outs and two men on, Maluchnik stepped up to the plate. However, the freshman was unable to secure the win for the Blue Devils, striking out to end the game.
Despite the last disappointing loss, Duke was happy with its performance.
"We're very fortunate to win two out of three against a team that I thought played very well," Traylor said. "You can't look at records in this conference because everybody in this conference can play."
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