The Duke baseball team heads to Raleigh this weekend to face N.C. State in a showdown for fourth place in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Currently the two teams are separated by a half game, with Duke holding the lead at 6-5, compared to N.C. State's 6-6 conference mark.
Taking at least two of the three games from the Wolfpack is vital for Duke. The wins would place Duke near the top of the ACC as the stretch run approaches.
A losing campaign would send Duke closer the to cellar and put them in a precarious position, especially with a series at Florida State (32-5, 12-0 in the ACC) next on the conference horizon.
"We've got a good winning streak heading in and we've got Florida State the weekend after this, which will be a tough series," freshman infielder Tigger Marshall said, "so we'd like to have a lot of momentum heading into that. Right now we're fourth and they're right behind us, so we really need to take two out of three."
The No. 21 Wolfpack present a difficult challenge for the Blue Devils as they boast one of the most solid all-around line-ups in the country.
"They're a great team," head coach Steve Traylor said. "They have great hitters up and down the lineup and they have some very experienced pitching. They're 6-6 in the conference, but they lost three one-run games at Florida State and a one-run game at home to Georgia Tech. So really they could be right there with FSU at the top of the heap.
"We're absolutely going to have to play our best baseball of the year - we're going to have to get the great pitching we've been getting, and we're going to have to execute practically perfectly defensively and offensively. It's a tough road, but I think we'll do fine."
After carefully rotating his pitchers during recent games, Traylor is set to send his best hurlers to the mound against State. Sophomore Chris Dishman (4-1, 2.06 ERA) will face Corey Lee (6-2, 2.25) of State in Friday's game.
On Saturday, Duke sends it's ace, Senior Scott Schoeneweis (6-2, 2.26) to the mound and will probably start sophomore Jim Wendling (1-1) on Sunday. State will counter with ace junior Brett Black (8-1, 2.97) one day, with the last starter yet to be determined.
"Wendling has probably become our starter for Sunday," Traylor said. "We are hoping to make it through the first game with Dishman and Darwin. Then on Saturday, we're going to hope that Schoeneweis can take us as deep as possible. Scott's usually a pretty legitimate guy to think that you have a chance to get a complete game out of. The last couple of games have left our pitching a little thin."
Duke also hopes to make some noise with this series and gain some respect around the ACC by taking a road series from a nationally ranked team.
"This series is real important for us," sophomore leftfielder Michael Fletcher said. "I think we've proven to ourselves that we can play, now it's time for us to prove to other people that we can play."
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