The Blue Devil bats busted loose Thursday afternoon at historic Jack Coombs Field as the baseball team hung a 17-5 decision on visiting Pfeifer.
The Falcons (19-20) jumped on Duke starter Stephen Cowie for a 3-0 second-inning lead, but the Blue Devils (26-9) scored at least two runs in each of the next six innings to run away with the game.
Cowie, Duke's ace, managed to pick up the win as he went seven innings, giving up two earned runs on nine hits while striking out nine. The win moved Cowie to 7-1 on the year.
"They hit Cowie harder than most [Atlantic Coast Conference] teams have hit him this year," Duke coach Steve Traylor said. "He was getting the ball up consistently and even their outs were hard-hit balls.
"The difference was that we hit the ball over the fence and they didn't."
The Blue Devils blasted three home runs on the afternoon to go along with five doubles. Senior catcher Gregg Maluchnik led the hitting barrage with two hits-including his team-leading tenth homer of the year-to go along with three runs and three RBIs.
Michael Fletcher and Vaughn Schill joined Maluchnik in going deep. Fletcher's longball was his eighth of the year and the junior also belted a double, racking up a pair of RBIs on the day. Schill's homer, his seventh of the year, came in the seventh inning and cleared the fence by the slimmest of margins, caroming off the top of the fence.
Jeff Becker was also an offensive force for Duke as the junior third baseman smacked two doubles and contributed three RBIs while going 3-for-5. Schill, John Benik and J.D. Alleva also contributed a pair of RBIs each.
The Blue Devils also took advantage of Thursday's non-conference game to play some of their younger players.
"Right now we're trying to lengthen our bench a little bit with David Mason, Tyler Lang and Ryan Caradonna," Traylor said.
Mason and Caradonna both started and made four plate appearances, while Lang came in later and played both first and third base. Traylor also got Adam Geis a pair of at-bats after the junior struggled in the Blue Devils' weekend series at Georgia Tech coming off an injury.
Thursday's contest did not originally appear on Duke's schedule, but was a makeup date for a game that was rained out over Spring Break.
The Blue Devils have lost two other games to rain-outs this year, and while those contests cannot be made up, Duke has added a pair of games to compensate for the loss. It will face Guilford on Monday and St. Andrews on Tuesday. Both are home games with 3 p.m. starts.
With the weekend off from ACC play, Duke returns to the field today for a 3 p.m. home contest against Elon.
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