For much of the season, Duke was fighting to qualify for the ACC tournament.
But after 23 victories in 31 games led to a conference tournament bid and likely an NCAA tournament berth for the first time since 1961, the Blue Devils are now wondering how far they can go this postseason.
No. 7 seed Duke will look for its 10th victory in 11 contests in an ACC tournament play-in game against 10th-seeded Wake Forest Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The Blue Devils were left 2-7 in league play after taking on the Demon Deacons in the regular season, but a midseason lineup adjustment fueled Duke's resurgence at the end of the year and has the Blue Devils in position to qualify for ACC tournament pool play with another win.
“This is the best that a Duke baseball club has been playing since I’ve been here,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said.
The Blue Devils (33-21, 14-15 in the ACC) turned things around in the middle of the season, but were still left 13th out of 14 teams in the league standings with two weekends left in the regular season and eight teams separated by two games in the loss column.
Duke then made history when it needed to most, taking a series from then-No. 7 Florida State for the first time since 1994 and winning two games against Pittsburgh before the series finale was rained out.
"It’s the first time we have a chance to maybe make a [NCAA] regional in a long time and make some noise in the college baseball world," sophomore Jack Labosky said. "I wouldn’t say anyone is content with where we are."
To stay hot, the Blue Devils—who start eight underclassmen—will have to take down a Wake Forest team that got into the ACC tournament by virtue of a tiebreaker with North Carolina.
Junior Parker Dunshee—who carries an 8-4 record and 3.21 ERA into Tuesday's game—is expected to start for the Demon Deacons (32-23, 13-17) against a Duke lineup that hit 42 points higher—.280—in the team's last 31 games than it did to start the season.
Junior Will Craig—the 2015 ACC Player of the Year—headlines Wake Forest's offense, as the 6-foot-3 infielder has increased his numbers in batting average, home runs and RBIs this year and currently leads the nation in OPS, indicating power and ability to get on base.
“Craig is arguably the best player in college baseball,” Pollard said.
Although they were swept by No. 2 seed Louisville last weekend, the Demon Deacons have four players batting better than .300 on the year and scored 12 runs against the Blue Devils in a 12-0 rout March 25.
Duke lost 3-2 against Wake Forest the following day in 10 innings, but Pollard and his staff changed the team's lineup before that game, inserting sophomore Justin Bellinger into the No. 4 spot, moving Labosky to third base and moving freshman Jimmy Herron to center field and into the leadoff spot.
The trio responded by all hitting better than .330 since the switch, with Labosky and Herron earning second-team All-ACC honors. Since the changes, the Blue Devils have scored almost two more runs per contest.
"That’s when our offense started to click,” Pollard said. “It was kind of the turning point for us.”
Graduate student Kellen Urbon will be on the mound for Duke Tuesday after allowing two runs in seven innings against the Demon Deacons March 26. The Cornell transfer has a 2.72 ERA and should allow Trent Swart or Brian McAfee to pitch Wednesday in pool play if the Blue Devils advance.
"The past two weekends, every game has been extremely important. Every game, we’ve been treating it as a one-and-done," Urbon said. "If we lost a lot of our last couple games, then we wouldn’t even have been in this position, so [we're] kind of trying to take the same mentality into this."
Duke is projected to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1961, but could help itself with more good play this week. In 1994 and 2009, the Blue Devils finished the regular season and conference play .500 or better but missed the postseason, but at least one ACC team from each year with a worse conference record made the NCAA tournament instead.
Although Duke is still worse than .500 in the ACC, the conference is perhaps as strong as it has ever been. ACC teams combined for the fourth-best non-conference record in its history, and 10 ACC teams—the most of any conference—have top-26 RPIs.
With the nation's No. 23 RPI, the Blue Devils are looking to post just their second winning record in 34 trips to the ACC tournament to leave no doubt about their NCAA tournament fate.
Hank Tucker contributed reporting.
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