Down for most of the game, Duke’s baseball team pressed the issue in the bottom of the eighth inning with a super regional berth on the line.

And the Blue Devils are headed to a super regional for the fourth time in the last seven NCAA tournaments because they pressed the issue.

Duke beat Oklahoma State 3-2 on Sunday night at Foley Field, sweeping through the Athens regional with three wins in the last three days.

Duke (40-19) will play either fourth-seeded Murray State or No. 1 seed Mississippi in a best-of-3 super regional series next weekend. Those two teams were still playing when Duke’s win was clinched; Murray State only needs to win once, while Mississippi needs two wins to reach the super regional round.

Per source, if Duke plays Murray State next weekend, it will host at Jack Coombs Field. If Mississippi advances, the super regional will be in Oxford, Miss.

More on that later; the present is to recap a wild finish to Duke’s ticket-punching win.

Duke’s only runs were scored in the bottom of the eighth. That started with a one-out home run by AJ Gracia — a Blue Devil finally getting one over the wall after a night’s worth of long flyouts, with Tyler Albright robbed of a homer earlier in the game by centerfielder Kollin Ritchie.

The inning continued with Jake Hyde’s single and Ben Rounds drawing a walk. Oklahoma State (30-25) changed pitchers, going with Mario Pesca, who started the Cowboys’ loss to Duke on Friday night. He struck out Albright for the second out of the inning.

Sam Harris drove a 2-2 pitch up the middle, shaded to the right side of second base, that found the outfield grass. Hyde scored from second and Rounds chugged around all the way from first base — getting an aggressive send by third-base coach Derek Simmons and helped by neither Oklahoma State middle infielder going to the outfield for a relay throw.

The drama didn’t end after that.

Duke brought in Reid Easterly (9-2) for the eighth inning and he retired all three batters he faced. Easterly got two quick outs in the ninth, and then struck out Garrett Shull. But the ball got away from catcher Macon Winslow, and Shull was initially ruled to have reached first base on a dropped third strike.

That was overturned by a review, sending Duke into both euphoria and the fourth super regional of the last seven NCAA tournaments.

Duke started Henry Zatkowski, who pitched 4 2/3 innings and allowed two runs. Gabe Nard was the only pitcher between Zatkowski and Easterly, going 2 1/3 scoreless. The first two batters of the sixth reached against Nard, but maneuvered out of that jam to keep the Blue Devils within striking distance.

Ritchie not only kept Duke scoreless by robbing Albright, he accounted for Oklahoma State’s runs with a two-run homer in the fourth inning. That came roughly 2½ hours after he hit a game-tying two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning against Georgia; Oklahoma State walked it off to eliminate the hosts on a two-run homer later in that inning.

EXTRA BASES: Ben Miller was out of Duke’s lineup after a 9th-inning pitch on Saturday night hit his hand. He remained in Saturday night’s game but was replaced for this game by freshman Noah Murray at third base. … Mixed into the chaos of the eighth and ninth innings, Gracia was ejected from the game for entering the playing area with a prop — in this case, the construction helmet Duke players wear after hitting home runs. Kyle Johnson replaced him in centerfield for the ninth and he made a running catch on a sinking, soft liner for the first out. … Duke’s potent offense was held off the scoreboard for the bulk of the game by Noah Wech, a freshman reliever for the Cowboys. He allowed five hits and didn’t walk a batter, with five strikeouts, in six innings.