Jack Coombs Field will be a welcome sight for the Blue Devils this evening as Duke takes on No. 18 Virginia for the first of a three-game weekend series.
Tonight's first pitch will be thrown at 7 p.m. to start the series off under the lights. The following two games are both scheduled for 1 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.
Duke (10-24, 3-9 in the ACC) has played seven of its last eight games away from home. The Blue Devils started the road swing with a three-game series at then-No. 1 Florida State two weeks ago, followed by one mid-week home game against UNC Wilmington. Duke then trekked to Boston over the weekend and finished its road stretch at High Point Wednesday.
Today's evening game, however, will be the first of a stretch of seven consecutive games in Durham. After the set with Virginia (25-8, 6-6), Duke will host Davidson mid-week and Wake Forest next weekend.
"We're excited at being at home and playing back-to-back ACC series at home," McNally said. "Our park is actually pretty similar to Virginia's, in that the dimensions are spacious. We're comfortable playing at home and I'm sure they're going to be ready to play. But I think it's always a benefit to play at home regardless of what the level."
Despite a 2-6 record over the last two weeks-the two victories were the team's first road wins in the last two seasons-McNally remains positive.
"I feel like we were ready to play," McNally said. "The energy and excitement was good. I think the mood and atmosphere around the club has been really good right now."
The highlight of the road swing was the Blue Devils' successful series against Boston College, in which Duke won two of the three games against the ACC opponent.
"We played our best series of the year against Boston College," McNally said. "We just have to get ready to play Virginia this weekend, get them at home, and try to get refocused on that. If you look back on the last week, we had a tough one with Wilmington and then played our best series of the year against Boston College. That's my hope-that we come ready to play this weekend. There's no reason we can't have a good weekend against Virginia."
The Blue Devils struggled earlier in the season at the plate but recently have turned things around.
At first glance, Wednesday's 16-3 loss to High Point does not seem to indicate improved hitting. Two Blue Devils homered in the 10-hit game, however, and Duke did not plate more runs because its hitters ran into trouble knocking in its baserunners. The Blue Devils left the bases loaded twice in the game, stranding a total of 12 runners.
Against Boston College, the Blue Devils went 38-for-132 to hit .288 as a team, scoring 24 runs total in the winning series.
Against Virginia, Duke will look to improve on and continue these recent, positive trends.
"We know Virginia, or whoever we play, is going to give us a battle every time out," McNally said. "We've been swinging the bats well. We swung them really well against Boston College.. Generally we're swinging the bats better and I think it'll be a basic practice to get ready for a tough ACC opponent."
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