Blue Devils bash way into super regional

Duke didn’t take the easiest route to winning the Conway regional, but the Blue Devils sure made things look easy in the decisive final game.

The Blue Devils thrashed Coastal Carolina 12-3 to win the regional on Monday night at Springs Brooks Stadium, advancing to the super regional round of the NCAA baseball championship.

The win, coming a night after Coastal Carolina won 8-6 to force Monday night’s game, sends Duke (38-22) to a familiar place: The Blue Devils will play at Virginia in a best-of-3 series, with the winner reaching the College World Series.

Duke will begin its series against Virginia either Friday or Saturday; that designation will be announced Tuesday morning.

In April, Duke won two of three games at Virginia. That came in a stretch when the Blue Devils got hot and went 15-3 that month, and they seem to have rekindled that fire this week — never more apparent than Monday night.

Duke got the scoring started with MJ Metz’s fourth home run of the regional, and his first since hitting three of them against UNC Wilmington on Friday. Torn ACL and all, the right-handed Metz pulled a solo homer to left in the second.

Breathing room came with Alex Stone’s three-run homer in the third. The spark was Alex Mooney’s one-out hit, which was a dribbler through the middle that he turned into a double. Andrew Fischer walked and with two outs, Stone launched his 17th home run of the season.

The Blue Devils kept stacking up runs, two more coming on a Luke Storm single in the fourth, one more on Giovani DiGiacomo’s solo homer in the fifth.

Cole Hebble bunted in a run in the sixth and Metz blooped in a two-run single that made it 10-0, which turned out to be plenty for a Duke pitching staff that turned in one of its best performances of the season, given the stakes.

Coastal Carolina scored three runs in the ninth to avoid the shutout. But Duke’s pitching staff held the Chanticleers, who entered the day with the fourth-highest-scoring offense in the country, off of the scoreboard for eight innings.

It started with Alex Gow, who also started Duke’s first game of the regional on Friday. He pitched four innings, the one hit he allowed coming in the fourth, to go along with seven strikeouts.

The strikeout total matched a season high and it was the first scoreless appearance for Gow since an April 9 start against Virginia Tech.

Charlie Beilenson (6-3) followed with two shutout innings in which he didn’t allow a baserunner and had three strikeouts. Fran Oschell III had a 1-2-3 seventh, and Aaron Beasley closed out the final two innings.

Duke is one of three ACC teams left, and with its matchup coming against Virginia, the league is assured of at least one team in Omaha for the College World Series (top overall seed Wake Forest plays host to Alabama in a super regional).

That means for the 17th straight College World Series, there will be at least one ACC team present.