The Duke baseball team pulled off a dramatic 11-10 comeback against William & Mary Tuesday afternoon at Jack Coombs Field. The Blue Devils battled back from deficits of 8-2 and 10-7 before overtaking the Tribe in their final at-bat.
Down 10-9, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, sophomore catcher Gregg Maluchnik sliced a single to right field, scoring sophomore designated hitter Adam Geis and senior centerfielder Mike King for the win. Geis led the inning off with a double, but two outs later, the Blue Devils had only managed to advance Geis to third. William & Mary head coach Jim Farr then elected to intentionally walk King, since King's last trip to the plate produced a mammoth home run. With a 1-1 count on Maluchnik, King stole second base-putting himself in position to score the winning run.
"Mike did a great job with the stolen base," head coach Steve Traylor said. "We got him into scoring position. That was huge."
Maluchnik's game-winning hit was part of a solid offensive effort in which he went 2-5 with four RBIs.
"He did his job," Traylor said. "You'll never have more of a clutch base hit than that... that's a memorable occasion."
The winning pitcher for Duke was senior lefthander David Darwin who entered the game in the seventh inning. After giving up two runs in the eighth on a triple by Tribe shortstop Ron Bush, Darwin settled down and finished with four strikeouts. Bush was an offensive powerhouse for William & Mary, finishing the day with seven RBIs, including a three-run homer to left in the third inning.
The Blue Devils jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but could not manage any more runs until the sixth. By that time, William & Mary had built an 8-2 lead, with all eight runs coming at the expense of Duke starting pitcher, senior Craig Starman. Starman went six innings, giving up 10 hits, before being replaced.
"We've had such good pitching for such long stretches that this sort of thing is inevitable," Traylor said. "Starman wasn't as sharp as usual, he was getting the ball up, the umpire wasn't calling a lot of low strikes for him, the wind was blowing out. Once you get into that kind of mode, it's tough to pull the reigns in."
In the bottom of the sixth, the Blue Devil bats came alive as Duke put up five runs. After sophomore Michael Fletcher was hit by a pitch and freshman Jeff Becker blooped a single to left-center, Geis came up with an RBI single. Tribe starting pitcher Will Malerich was lifted in favor of righthander Justin Wellen, and junior second baseman Frankie Chiou responded to the pitching change with a two-run triple to right field. After King was hit by a pitch, Maluchnik drove in two more runs with a double down the right-field line.
William & Mary struck back in the eighth inning with two runs off of Darwin. The damage might have been worse, however, had Maluchnik not gunned down Tribe centerfielder Erik Doy attempting to steal third.
Duke stormed back immediately in the bottom of the eighth. Chiou led off with a single against new Tribe pitcher Brett Craun, and King followed with his home run to pull Duke within one run.
The win moved Duke to 13-1 on the year and dropped William & Mary to 10-2. The game was the team's last game before Atlantic Coast Conference play begins on Friday, and Traylor believes that the win can only help add to Duke's momentum.
"...If there is such a thing as momentum in baseball," Traylor said.
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