The Duke baseball team reignited their early-season firepower Wednesday afternoon as it destroyed Wofford 14-2 at Jack Coombs Field. The Blue Devils had been struggling in their non-conference contests as of late, most noticeably last week's home loss to Davidson, but an 11-run third inning propelled Duke to the blow-out victory.
'This was the ideal mid-week game for us at this point in the season," head coach Steve Traylor said. "It's been a real meat grinder every game we've gone into, you just feel like you've got to play so well. There's always that pressure of having to perform game after game, especially in the conference and then we had a mid-week game last week that we didn't get under our belt so this game was very important for us."
The Terriers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second on an RBI double by catcher Bryan Jones. Wofford gave the lead back in the bottom of the inning as it committed two errors and pitcher Anthony Salley walked three Blue Devil batters, making the score 2-1.
The third inning saw the Blue Devil bats erupt as they put up 11 runs on 10 hits, including a streak of eight in a row at one point. With one run already in and the bases loaded, freshman shortstop Jeremy Horowitz slapped a single to left, scoring two Duke base runners. After freshman first baseman John Benik drew a walk to load the bases again, freshman Jordan Litrownik started the hitting streak with a two-run single.
The scoring continued as junior second baseman Frankie Chiou and senior centerfielder Mike King both picked up RBIs. Gregg Maluchnik brought them both in with a triple to right-center. Freshman third baseman Jeff Becker then proceeded to top that with a two-run homer to left field. The streak was rounded out by a series of base hits by leftfielder Michael Fletcher, designated hitter Adam Geis and Horowitz, whose single scored Fletcher for the final run of the inning.
The Blue Devil bats were silent for the remainder of the game with the exception of a lead-off home run by King in the seventh inning. The blast was a line drive to left.
"We were hoping for a game like this where we could come out and score a lot of runs and get the offense going again," Litrownik said. "These games are just as important as the conference games, trying to get to 40 wins-or however many wins we can get so we can make regionals."
Duke put the game on cruise control from there as starter Jim Wendling and four relievers limited the Terriers to one earned run on five hits for the game. Wendling picked up his first win of the season and struck out three over five innings of work.
"Wendling we felt could probably come back on Sunday," Traylor said. "Especially if he didn't have to go to deep into the game. The way the game went couldn't have been better for our pitching.
"It was great too because we got a lot of these guys who need the playing time out on the field so we could establish some depth."
"You don't go in expecting games like this, but we kind of had a letdown against Davidson-a team with a similar record to this one," Maluchnik said. "We just came out there and started swinging the sticks. We had the one big inning early, after that we could go in and put some people in different places and get some people some swings for this weekend."
The win moved Duke to 29-7 on the year and dropped Wofford to 5-26. The Blue Devils return to action today as they face North Carolina A&T at home. Game time is 3 p.m.
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