For the first time in twenty years, Duke baseball will finish over .500 in ACC play.
After dropping their last five conference games, the Blue Devils were able to hang on and defeat No. 4 Florida State 7-5 Saturday afternoon at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla.
With the win, Duke (32-23, 16-14 ACC) will go into the ACC Tournament this week in Greensboro, N.C. as the number four seed with only Miami (40-15, 24-6), Florida State (41-14, 21-9) and Virginia (43-11, 22-8) finishing with better conference records.
Ten teams will compete in the ACC tournament, which begins this Wednesday March 21. The bottom four teams will have to face off in a single-elimination play-in game to begin the tournament and narrow the field down to eight teams. The pressure was on the Blue Devils Saturday to get a win and guarantee avoiding that play-in game. Had Duke dropped the season finale to Florida State, the Blue Devils would have needed some help to dodge falling far enough in the standings to have to play in the play-in game.
“It’s huge [to avoid the play-in game],” head coach Chris Pollard said. “If you want a chance to win the tournament you have to avoid that play-in game. If you play in that play-in game the odds are stacked against you and to be able to stay out of that extremely increases our ability to go in there and make a real serious run at winning that tournament which is our plan.”
With the pressure high, Duke turned to junior lefty Trent Swart to get the victory. Swart turned in one his best starts of the season.
The Carlsbad, Calif., native allowed only three runs and six hits while striking out three through eight innings of work. The southpaw looked as comfortable as ever on the mound in this must-win game for the Blue Devils.
“I thought it was incredible,” Pollard said of Swart’s start. “When we needed a win—and everybody knew we needed coming into the ballgame—to give us that type of start under those types of circumstances just shows you what type of competitor he is. He was in complete control.”
Duke’s offense exploded in the ninth inning of Friday night’s game, scoring five runs in the inning and coming up just one run shy of coming back to steal a win. Even though they could not come up with the win, the momentum from the game clearly carried over as the Blue Devils attacked early and often against the Seminole pitchers. The Blue Devils scored twice in the first inning off starter Peter Miller and then added another three in the third inning off reliever Jim Voyles to jump out to a quick 5-1 lead against Florida State.
The Blue Devils added an insurance run in each of the fourth and sixth innings to take a 7-1 lead. These runs would turn out to be crucial for Duke as the Seminoles attempted a late rally by scoring two in the seventh and two in the ninth before senior closer Robert Huber shut the door and sealed the win for the Blue Devils.
“Without question [Friday night’s game impacted Duke’s offense],” Pollard said. “We talked about that a lot. We talked about carrying that momentum from last night into today and our guys really seized upon that. We had really good at-bats early and I think that that ninth inning last night no question was a big part of our offensive approach today.”
Duke was able to do all this offensively without starters Aaron Cohn and Kenny Koplove in the lineup, both of which are dealing with recently sustained but minor injuries. With two of their teammates out, the Blue Devils answered the call and showed that they are deeper than other teams might have thought.
The program has come a long way since the last time it finished better than .500 in conference play. 2009 was the only season that Duke had finished at .500 since 1994 but this current group of seniors had not experiences anything close to a winning season in the ACC since they came in as freshman in 2011.
“[I’m] really happy for our players,” Pollard said. “I’m happy for our seniors—they’ve been through a lot. They persevered through some tough seasons and to have success and to have what is now an historical season, they’re very deserving of it and I’m really happy for them.”
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