The Blue Devils headed south of the border this weekend, and were left feeling sick.
Duke had its hopes of moving up in the ACC standings dashed, as the Blue Devils (17-24, 5-9 in the ACC) dropped all three games of their series against the Clemson Tigers (25-13, 8-4).
"Obviously we would have liked to get a win from Clemson," coach Bill Hillier said. "But there are a lot of people who go into Clemson and come out empty-handed."
The only game closely contested in the series was yesterday's 6-4 loss.
After getting hammered in the previous two contests, the Blue Devils hung in for much of the game.
"We made a couple of errors and gave up three earned runs, but we out-hit them... and we played well enough to beat them."
Duke got on the board first in the opening frame when designated hitter Bryan Smith scored on a single from catcher Troy Caradonna to give the Blue Devils a 1-0 lead.
Caradonna struck again in the sixth, driving home leftfielder Doug Bechtold. Third baseman J.D. Alleva scored on an error by the centerfielder to Duke a 3-0 lead.
In the bottom half of the inning, the floor fell out from under the Blue Devils. Clemson opened the inning with a pair of doubles and a single to pull the score to 3-2.
Hillier responded by bringing
With two outs, Tigers' catcher Steve Pyzik hit a groundball to third. Alleva overthrew first baseman Larry Broadway, and the Tigers scored two runs before Duke nailed Khalil Greene at the plate to end the inning.
"There were two outs, it was a full count, and their guys were running," Hillier said. "He overthrew Larry, but at least we got the guy at the plate. Our guys were able to bounce back."
The inning did not appear to knock the wind out of the Blue Devils.
Shortstop Kevin Kelly and rightfielder David Mason led off the sixth with back-to-back singles. With one out, Bechtold walked to load the bases.
Second baseman Scott Grossi hit a sacrifice fly to center to pull Duke within a run at 5-4, but the Blue Devils were unable to get another run home in the inning.
Clemson added a run in the eighth to push the score to 6-4 and held on in the ninth for the victory.
"We got it back to 5-4," Hillier said. "And we got two guys on base in the ninth, we had the right guy [J.D. Alleva] at the plate, but he grounded into a double play. I think even in the ninth our guys still felt we had a chance to beat them. We just couldn't get it done."
The first two games of the series were not nearly as close.
In Friday's opener, the Blue Devils were knocked out of contention by the end of the first inning.
Clemson opened the game with a pair of singles, followed by first baseman Michael Johnson's three-run homer. Clemson added another single and a home run by designated hitter Jarrod Smith to take a 5-0 lead.
Clemson starter Matt Henrie allowed only one unearned run in seven innings as the Tigers rolled to a 10-2 victory.
"We didn't pitch well and we didn't hit," Hillier said.
On Saturday, the Blue Devils were done in by another five-run inning as Clemson scored five in the fifth, which launched the Tigers on their way to a decisive 10-1 win.
"[Those big innings] hurt a ton," Hillier said. "When you play good teams, you can't afford to give up big innings like that. That was huge for them. You just can't do that against good teams."
This week, the Blue Devils take on North Carolina A&T tomorrow before heading to Chapel Hill to face the Tar Heels this weekend.
"We've got to go into A&T on Tuesday and get a win," Hillier said. "The next two weeks are very big for us. If we can get a win Tuesday and get some momentum going into the Carolina series, I think we have to be the favorite."
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