Can a last place team lose its two best players and get better? Duke's baseball team certainly thinks so.
Entering last season with high hopes and a preseason All-American in Larry Broadway, the Blue Devils crashed and burned to a highly disappointing 24-34 finish, including a dismal 4-20 mark good for dead last in the cutthroat ACC.
Two of the lone bright spots in Duke's dreary season were Broadway and shortstop Kevin Kelly, both of whom have left the ACC for single-A after being selected in the first five rounds of last summer's major league draft. Despite their departures, coaches and players alike have lofty goals for the upcoming season, which begins this Friday when Duke hosts Cincinnati for the first game of a three-game series at historic Jack Coombs Field.
"If we don't go to regionals [of the College World Series], and don't get up in the [middle of the standings] in the conference, I'm going to be disappointed," head coach Bill Hillier said. "I think we're good enough for that, I really do."
Duke plans to overcome the loss of its two best hitters with a deep, talented and--most importantly--healthy pitching staff. Hillier's staff was ravaged by injuries last season, forcing the fourth-year coach to throw freshmen, and even walk-ons, into action. This year, the Blue Devils get a big boost with the return of right-hander Kevin Thompson, who was the team's best pitcher as a sophomore but redshirted last year while rehabbing from off-season shoulder surgery.
"We had so many guys get hurt last year, and everybody's healthy now," explained senior right-hander Jeff Alleva. "Losing Broadway and Kelly hurts... but having [Thompson] back makes us 10 times better, because he's so good."
Thompson and Alleva are joined on the staff by juniors Justin Dilucchio and Zach Schreiber, and sophomores Paul DeMarco and Tim Layden, a second-team freshman All-America last season.
Together, they constitute one of the most talented and experienced pitching staffs Duke has had in years.
The pitching will get even stronger when junior Greg Burke returns from elbow surgery, as he is expected to by the time conference play begins in late March.
"I hope by the end of the season I can say that it's the best pitching staff I've ever had since I've been at Duke," Hillier said. "It's got the makings of that."
Alleva, who spent last summer posting a phenomenal 1.17 ERA in the prestigious Cape Cod league, agrees with his coach's assessment.
"It's going to be like night and day with our staff this year," he said. "We'll be a lot better."
The pitching must be better if Duke is to have any success in the highly competitive ACC. The nine-team conference features three teams in the preseason top-10 and five in the top-25, meaning that more often than not, when the Blue Devils take on a conference foe, they will be facing one of the nation's elite. The ACC also placed nine players on Baseball America's preseason All-America teams, most of any conference.
"I love [playing in the ACC]," senior rightfielder Brian Patrick said. "That's why I came to Duke. You get to play against the best. When you face an All-American on the mound, there's nothing better than that."
With so many top-notch teams in the ACC, and coming off a last-place finish, Duke was picked by coaches to finish eighth in the conference. The prediction doesn't bother Hillier, who hopes his team earns the respect that he feels it deserves.
"It's where you are at the end that counts," Hillier said. "They can pick us where they want right now, but at the end of the season, they don't have a choice."
Duke is hoping that the end comes only after a trip to the postseason regionals, something that it was unable to accomplish even with Broadway and Kelly. If the Blue Devils are to reach the postseason for the first time in nine years, they will do so with contributions from up and down the roster.
"We're going to have a much more balanced team," Alleva said. "Last year, we had a couple of really good players and then we had bunch of players trying to find their role. This year, we don't have a star... but everybody's got the talent and experience to contribute, so I think we have strength in numbers."
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