Auspiciously opening its season with a couple of games against Navy, the baseball team showed all signs of moving out of last season's basement. The Blue Devils cruised by the Midshipmen 8-1 and 15-3 Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Senior pitcher Zach Schreiber started on the mound for the Blue Devils Saturday afternoon. He allowed only two hits in four scoreless innings. He and three other Blue Devil pitchers combined for six hits and one run in the team's winning effort.
"Our strength right now is our pitching, " Duke head coach Bill Hillier said. "We're healthy. We have more experience on the hill and on the field and now they expect to win. From top to bottom right now, our pitching is pretty good."
Offensively, Bryan Smith began a fourth-inning rally when he tripled to right center, scoring Mike Miello, who singled to start the inning. Smith, who went 3-for-4 with an RBI, then scored off a single from Adam Loftin. John Berger and Jonathan Anderson also collected RBIs in the fourth inning as the Blue Devils scored four runs off five hits.
In the sixth inning, Duke's Javier Socorro and Brian Hernandez scored off a throwing error by Navy shortstop Dominic Lopez. Adam Murray scored to add another run in the sixth. In the seventh inning, Hernandez collected an RBI, batting in Michael Golom to round out the Blue Devils' scoring with eight runs.
Navy scored its sole run in the eighth inning when Craig Candeto singled to left, driving in Pete Curnow from second base. However, Duke pitcher Kevin Thompson struck out the next two batters to end the inning for the Midshipmen.
Sunday's game was yet another dominating win for the Blue Devils. Tim Layden started the game and allowed one earned run in three innings. At the plate, Layden went 3-for-4 and batted in five of Duke's 15 runs.
"Right now, I feel pretty comfortable at the plate," Layden said. "My swing feels good. I feel like I'm getting good contact and I'm trying not to do too much, just get my hands through it."
In the fourth, Layden was relieved by freshman Danny Otero. Otero pitched three scoreless innings and struck out three batters. In the fourth, the Midshipmen posed a threat by loading the bases, but Otero remained collected, getting out of the jam with a strikeout and ground out to retire Navy.
"I put myself in [the jam], so I felt like I had to get myself out of it," Otero said. "I just had to do what I had to do to get out of that [situation], and thankfully, I did."
The Blue Devils had two strong six-run innings in the first and fifth. In the first inning, Anderson began the inning with a double to center. Layden, Smith, Loftin and Berger all collected RBIs as Duke had six hits to begin the game. Later in the fourth, Layden collected two more RBIs and scored to bring the Blue Devils ahead by seven runs. In the fifth inning, Duke bring another six runs on the board. Socorro scored Golom and Hernandez on a double to center field, and Layden collected two more RBIs in the fifth.
With such solid and consistent hitting, Duke has been able to capitalize on scoring opportunities well.
"I'd like to compliment Coach Yurkow, my hitting coach," Hillier said. "We had 29 hits in two days and back-to-back wins. We've done a great job on the bases being aggressive and putting ourselves in a situation where we can score on a base hit. And we've done a good job of driving in runners. We've done a good job in our situational hitting."
Overall, the added experience of the talented sophomores, which Hillier called his best recruiting class in November 2001, has brought a better attitude and more strength to the field.
"Everybody's a lot more confident," Layden said. "Everybody's just having a lot more fun. The guys are smiling and laughing and joking. I think that's the biggest thing that's going to help us--the ability to come out and be confident, have a lot of fun and enjoy playing the game."
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