The baseball team headed down to the sunshine state this weekend to do battle with unbeaten conference heavyweight Florida State. Duke left Tallahassee having hung with the Seminoles for the majority of all three games, but came home empty-handed nonetheless.
The sweep moved FSU to 15-0 in the conference and 37-8 overall with its usual combination of solid starting pitching and explosive offensive outbursts.
"They're just good in every phase of the game," head coach Steve Traylor said. "They have unbelievable depth, they have great hitting from both sides of the plate, they've got a deep bullpen to compliment their excellent starting pitching and every kid has great speed. They have a tremendous tradition and you have to play some serious baseball, especially down here, to have a chance to win late in the game."
Left-hander Randy Choate (11-2) picked up the complete game victory in Friday's 6-2 triumph. He allowed two runs on four hits while striking out eight Blue Devil batters. At one point, he retired 13 consecutive hitters.
The offensive onslaught was led by leftfielder Jeremy Morris, who tallied seven RBIs for the weekend including a three-run double in the first game. He followed suit in Saturday's 14-4 win with a two-run double in the third inning and a two-run homer in the seventh.
Despite falling in all three contests, the Blue Devils managed to keep the games well within reach going into the final innings. The final game of the series, Sunday's 9-7 loss, was typical of how Duke played FSU throughout the weekend.
Freshman Teddy Sullivan (1-1) got the start for the Blue Devils and surrendered two first-inning runs. Duke eventually took a 3-2 lead in the third inning on an RBI single by freshman third baseman Jeff Becker. Sullivan was pulled in the fourth after giving up two more runs and was replaced by senior David Darwin. Traylor inserted Darwin, who usually acts as the team's closer, to stop the bleeding and keep the game close for as long as possible. After two strong innings, Darwin was touched up for four runs in the seventh-highlighted by a three-run, inside-the-park home run by second baseman Scott Zech.
Down 8-3, Duke retaliated in the top of the next inning with four runs of its own. The comeback fell short however as FSU added one more run, to make it 9-7, and the Blue Devils were unable to get a hit off of Seminole reliever Chuck Howell.
"They had a four-run inning late, and we matched it with our own four-run inning," Traylor said. "In the bottom of the eighth, they scored a run on Fishburn to take a two-run lead. After that, we just couldn't get over the hump."
The series started well for Duke as it grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning of Friday's contest when freshman rightfielder Jordan Litrownik scored on a passed ball. Morris' double in the bottom of the first helped the Seminoles reclaim the lead, 4-1. Duke starting pitcher Jim Wendling (1-3) settled down the rest of the way, giving up only two more runs over seven and two-thirds innings. The effort was meaningless, however, as Choate held Duke without another run until Becker hit a ninth-inning solo home run.
"Two of the three games we played very well," Traylor said. "We played a very solid, competitive game on Friday and got beat 6-2, but I was very pleased with how we played. They had a four-run first inning, and then we played them even the rest of the game."
Saturday's game proved to be the most devastating for the Blue Devils as they had a close game turn into an absolute blow-out in the seventh inning. Up 5-4, the Seminoles exploded for seven runs on Morris's home run and a myriad of Duke errors in the field. FSU added two more in the eighth and cruised to the 14-4 win. Senior Scott Schoeneweis (7-3) picked up the loss for the Blue Devils in what was one of his few bad outings this year. One bright spot for Duke was sophomore leftfielder Michael Fletcher, who hit his first home run of the year-a two-run shot that helped pull Duke to within one run in the early going.
"We had a poor third inning [Saturday], where they jumped out, I think, 5-0," Traylor said. "We battled back and made it a 5-4 game in the seventh, so I felt good about our comeback. Then we made some errors and played a very poor end to that game. Overall, it was the worst game we've played this year."
Duke's experiences over the weekend showed it two things: One, that it can hang with one of the best teams in America. Two, that the Blue Devils still have to learn how to take that extra step to earn the win against such a top-notch opponent.
"I thought we played very good baseball two out of three days and we played our worst game of the year in the middle game," Traylor said. "Unfortunately that was Schoeneweis' start; he didn't have one of his better games. Jimmy Wendling and Teddy Sullivan both gave us pretty good starts, guys did a pretty good job for us out of the bullpen, we played two games well defensively and we scored some runs here today. I felt we pretty much continued to play the way we have most of the year, with the exception of that middle game."
The results from the weekend leave Duke 32-12 overall and 7-10 in the ACC. The Blue Devils will try and get back on the winning track on Tuesday against Belmont Abbey as they begin a long non-conference stretch.
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