Blue Devils blast Miami late

CHARLOTTE – A long wait to start Saturday’s ACC tournament semifinal game gave way to a long wait for Duke’s offense to find its rhythm.

It was worth the wait.

A six-run eighth inning broke open a tied game and carried Duke to an 8-2 win over Miami at Truist Field, the Blue Devils punching through to the ACC tournament championship.

“I’ve just gotta give a lot of credit to our pitching staff,” said outfielder Devin Obee, who had one of two two-run homers in the eighth-inning barrage. “I think that’s one of the things that’s really great about our team is we just play relaxed. Both sides trust each other.

“The hitters trust our pitchers to go out and do their jobs, and vice versa, pitchers trust our hitters to do the job.”

Duke (38-18) will play Florida State on Sunday for the ACC tournament championship. The Seminoles, the tournament’s No. 5 seed, dispatched Wake Forest 9-6 in the early game on Saturday.

Duke’s monster eighth inning got going when freshman AJ Gracia earned a one-out walk. Miami (27-30) went to its top reliever, Myles Caba, and he entered a battle with senior catcher Alex Stone.

That went to a 2-2 count and Stone fouled off three pitches before lifting a homer just over the fence in left-center field.

“I could not be happier for him to have that moment,” coach Chris Pollard said of Stone.

There was no doubt about Obee’s homer, traveling an estimated 455 feet and hitting the net near the top of the scoreboard in left field.

Obee had a homer in Duke’s last game of pool play that was initially ruled a double off the wall; there wasn’t a review needed on that one.

“Well, I knew it was gone off the bat,” Obee said with a laugh.

Duke added two more runs in the eighth on an error and an RBI single by Ben Miller.

The Blue Devils took a while to break through offensively, trailing 2-0 early.

“As soon as we put Chuck (Beilenson) in, I was like, ‘All we’ve gotta do is score some runs,’” Obee said. “We just have so much trust in each other. When he gets up on that mound, it’s shutout.”

Duke struggled to get much offense against junior lefty Herick Hernandez. He entered the game with a 3-7 record and a 6.47 ERA, though his best outing against an ACC team during the regular season was against the Blue Devils.

He repeated that success, going five innings and allowing one run on one hit and striking out nine Blue Devils.

Beilenson (7-3), Duke’s star closer, wasn’t in line for the save … because he was the winning pitcher, having entered with two outs in the top of the seventh, when the Blue Devils trailed 2-1. He notched a strikeout to end that inning.

In the bottom of that inning, Obee singled and Wallace Clark followed with a double, giving the Blue Devils runners at second and third with one out. Pollard opted for Jimmy Evans — a transfer from Tufts who had 11 at-bats this season before Saturday night — as a pinch-hitter for Kyle Johnson and with two strikes, Evans lifted a ball deep enough to left field to score Obee from third and tie the game at 2-2.

“We had talked about before the inning, if we were in an RBI situation, Jimmy Evans would be our guy,” Pollard said of the conversation between he and hitting coach Eric Tyler.

Beilenson took the mound in the eighth with a tied score and worked around a two-out single; he worked a 1-2-3 ninth, throwing 31 pitches.

“Charlie did what he’s done all year and what he’s done his entire career,” Pollard said. “He is etching his name in the record books and the lore of Duke baseball as one of the best pitchers in the history of this program.”

Ryan Higgins was a bit of a surprise starting pitcher for the Blue Devils, given he started Tuesday night against Virginia Tech and they went into the weekend with one starter definitely available and another working his way back from injury.

But it seems Jonathan Santucci wasn’t quite ready for a return; he threw a bullpen session off the mound in the pre-game — and pre-delay — buildup. Santucci missed his last two starts of the regular season and Pollard said he was trending toward being available this weekend.

Higgins held his own and was victimized by the only hit he allowed. After a one-out walk of Edgardo Villegas, freshman slugger Daniel Cuvet drove a breaking ball over the fence in right field. That was his 24th home run of the season, breaking the Hurricanes’ freshman single-season record that was held by Pat Burrell.

Duke got its first run in the fifth when it got a single by Chase Krewson and three walks, the last of which was drawn by Zac Morris with the bases loaded.

EXTRA BASES: The start of the game was delayed about an hour and a half because of the threat of inclement weather moving in and around Charlotte. … Pollard said the pitching approach for Sunday’s championship game will be bullpen-by-committee. Santucci and Johnson haven’t pitched this week but because Santucci is returning from an injury and Johnson had a heavy workload last week, they’ll both be shelved with the idea they’ll be ready for an NCAA tournament regional next weekend. … Duke swept Miami in a three-game series in Durham this season and every win was by one run. This game looked like it was headed that way — for a while, at least.