On a day when the rest of the Duke bats decided to take a day off, designated hitter Ed Conrey brought his lumber to work and almost singlehandedly lifted Duke to a come-from-behind victory over the Wofford Terriers.
With his team down 2-1 in the sixth inning, Conrey drove in the Blue Devils' last three runs to give Duke (25-6) and starting pitcher Ryan Caradonna (1-0, 6.60 ERA) a 4-3 win at historic Jack Coombs field Wednesday afternoon.
"Thank goodness for Eddie-that's all I can say," Duke coach Steve Traylor said. "If it weren't for Eddie, we don't win that game. He was the whole offense."
Caradonna, making his first start of the season, also deserved some credit in the Blue Devils' win. The freshman righthander scattered five hits over seven innings, allowing only one earned run, to pick up his first collegiate win.
"I got a lot of tips from the older pitchers; they helped me out some," Caradonna said. "I threw pretty well. Good defense behind me, we scored some runs, made a couple of plays in the outfield-that's about it."
The Terriers (7-18) drew first blood in the top of the second on the strangest of circumstances. With the bases loaded, Matt Crosland lifted a pop-up directly in front of the plate, catcher Gregg Maluchnik and Caradonna ran into each other and the ball popped out of Maluchnik's mitt. Since the infield fly rule was called, Crosland was ruled out; however, Maluchnik picked up the ball, stepped on the plate and fired to first. Since no force play was in order, the runner on third, Matt Wells alertly raced home to give Wofford a 1-0 lead.
The Blue Devils struck back quickly in the bottom half of the inning. Center fielder Wes Goodner singled to drive in left fielder Michael Fletcher, tying the game at 1-1.
Wofford starting pitcher B.J. Turner, who had been roughed up by opposing hitters to the tune of a .361 average in his previous seven outings, inexplicably shut down Duke's bats through the next four innings. The Terriers, meanwhile, reclaimed a 2-1 lead for Turner on Jeremy Vigna's run-scoring infield single in the sixth.
"We were hitting the ball hard all day," Conrey said. "We hit the ball hard to all parts of the field, just right at people. We came out hacking but just couldn't get any breaks."
The lead would not last long. Leading off the bottom of the sixth, Conrey lifted a foul fly which barely dropped beyond the outstretched mitt of Terrier catcher Kent Christian. Given new life, Conrey launched an opposite field bomb, his ninth, tying the game at two runs apiece. Conrey would be heard from again.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Blue Devils loaded the bases with two walks and a hit-batsman, knocking out Turner. Wofford brought in lefthander Matt Whitten to face Conrey, who greeted Whitten by lining a two-run single to right on his second offering to increase his team-leading RBI total to 46.
"I just wanted to get a good pitch to hit, get something I can handle, a pitch I can drive," Conrey said. "He left a change-up up, and I was able to knock it into right."
After seven excellent innings of work, Caradonna was lifted in favor of senior Jimmy Wendling. After getting two quick outs, Wendling surrendered a long home run to center to Vigna, cutting Duke's lead to 4-3. Closer Vaughn Schill replaced Wendling in the ninth and survived a bases-loaded jam to notch his fifth save of the season.
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