The independent news organization of Duke University
Sportswrap is your one-stop shop for everything Duke athletics, where we’ll recap how each of Duke’s sports currently in competition performed over the last week and give a brief look ahead. Here’s our recap for the week of May 16-22.
No. 12-seed Duke bested America East champion UMBC 4-0 in its first game of the NCAA Durham Regional.
In Duke softball’s fourth year of existence in 2021, the program took the ACC Championship crown. In their fifth, the Blue Devils are one step closer to fighting their way to another.
Schedule changes and rain delays would not fluster Duke on its way to sweeping Pittsburgh and finishing the regular season with the second-best record in the ACC.
Duke went on to secure an 8-4 win Saturday before clawing its way to a 15-14 victory Sunday, even as Georgia Tech almost surmounted a seven-run gap.
While the Blue Devils faltered under the weight of accumulating missteps in their second meeting with Clemson Saturday, they firmly outplayed the Tigers Sunday to take the three-game series with a 7-1 win.
Duke escaped its three-game weekend series at Baylor with a tight loss Friday and a split double-header Sunday that was, to put it lightly, a mess.
Allowing the Eagles to fly into their offensive zone however they pleased made defending them once they got there harder, and that difficulty resulted in more open looks for them and more fouls delivered by the Blue Devils.
Duke stormed into contention Wednesday against Elon in the third, beginning with a shot into left by outfielder/pitcher Claire Davidson.
The Blue Devils took down the No. 2 team in the country in its opening weekend event.