Six-and-a-half innings into the final game of a three game set at historic Jack Coombs Field between the baseball team and Cincinnati, the weekend was a complete failure for the Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils dropped the opener 3-0 on Friday and suffered a demoralizing 3-2 loss in a 12-inning game Saturday.
So with two-and-a-half innings remaining Sunday, the Blue Devils were down 6-1 and on the verge of being swept.
But the Blue Devils scored nine runs in the seventh and eighth to take home the 10-7 win and redeem themselves for the two losses.
"Taking a win today makes me feel a little better," rookie coach Bill Hillier said. "Coming into the weekend, I felt we were good enough to take three from them, and you hope to get two every weekend."
Ryan Caradonna opened the bottom of the seventh with a single. Freshman catcher Troy Caradonna followed his brother to the plate and ran the count to three balls and a strike before blasting a two-run homer over the right-centerfield fence.
"The guy had been pitching me outside all day," said Caradonna. "I finally got a 3-1 pitch. He put it over the middle of the plate, and I hit it hard."
Following the homerun, the Blue Devils loaded the bases with no outs, but were unable to capitalize on the opportunity. Duke finished the inning down 6-3.
But what the Blue Devils were unable to do in the seventh, they did brilliantly in the eighth.
The inning opened with a David Mason single. Jeff Becker was hit by a pitch and Ryan Caradonna came to the plate. Caradonna grounded the ball towards the firstbaseman, setting up an almost certain double play.
But the firstbaseman bobbled the ball and all three runners were safe.
"That was a huge error for them," said Hillier. "That opened up the floodgates. We have not gotten too many breaks all season. I think that's the only error they made all weekend. Definitely when he made that error, I knew we had a chance to win the ballgame."
After the error, Troy Caradonna slammed the ball up the middle to score two runs and pull Duke within one at 6-5.
A pair of walks loaded the bases and evened the game at 6-6. Then Kevin Kelly came to bat with the bases loaded, and Kelly hammered a double to the left-centerfield fence, clearing the bases and giving the Blue Devils a 9-6 lead.
Duke scored its final run of the inning on a suicide-squeeze bunt from Mason, sealing the 10-7 victory.
"Coming in and scoring seven in the bottom of the eighth to pull the game out, that's huge after you lose a couple of tough games," Hillier said. "We lost a 12-inning game 3-2 and came back to get 12 hits.
"We definitely stepped it up a notch. We would like to have taken two, but our guys battled, and they played hard. That's all I can ask for at this point."
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