Behind some clutch hitting and a solid effort from pitchers Stephen Cowie and Chris Capuano, the baseball team jumped out to an early lead and never looked back. In a 8-2 victory over UNC-Wilmington (4-8) yesterday at historic Jack Coombs Field, the Blue Devils improved to 18-1 on the year.
Duke struck first in the bottom of the third inning when lead-off hitter Jordan Litrownik reached first on a Seahawk error. Capitalizing on the miscue, Vaughn Schill and Jeff Becker followed with singles to bring in Litrownik. Ed Conrey then singled to d<$>rive in Schill and Becker to give Duke an early 3-0 advantage.
In the bottom half of the next inning, after a brief UNC-W rally that cut the Blue Devil lead to 3-1, Duke answered with an offensive spurt of its own. Catcher Gregg Maluchnik got the Blue Devil bats churning with his third double of the year. One batter<$> later, junior John Benik stepped up to the plate and knocked Maluchnik in with a double of his own. Becker finished up the scoring with a two-run single to put Duke up 6-1.
In the sixth inning, Conrey doubled to put two more on the scoreboard for the Blue Devils. Duke then turned to its pitching and defense for the last few innings to shut down the Seahawks and win in a blowout.
"I thought we played a very good game today," said coach Steve Traylor. "We had some guys that had very good clutch base-hits when we needed them."
Starter Stephen Cowie had a strong outing for the Blue Devils and protected Duke's lead throughout the game. The 6-foot-2 junior from Belmont, N.C., threw seven innings and gave up only two earned runs and six hits while walking just one.
Hard-throwing sophomore Capuano relieved Cowie in the eighth inning and put an exclamation point on the Duke victory. Throwing close to 90 miles per hour, he struck out six UNC-W batters to dash any hopes for a late-inning rally by the Seahawks. In the ninth inning, he worked himself out of a bases-loaded jam by striking out the last two batters he faced.
"We got another great game out of Cowie, and maybe the highlight of the game was Capuano's pitching," Traylor said.
After a strong first month of the season, the Blue Devils now have the chance to see how they will fare in conference play. Duke has a few days off before opening play in the Atlantic Coast Conference with a three-game home-stand against Wake Forest beginning this Friday.
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