Duke baseball weekend recap

Duke and North Carolina played three down-to-the-wire baseball games this week and host UNC came away with a series win.

The Tobacco Road rivals split three-run decisions in each of the first two games, and then the Tar Heels won a 5-3 game on Saturday in a series that started a day early so the opener could be on ACC Network.

Duke (15-9, 4-5 ACC) dropped its second ACC series of three so far, having won two of three at Clemson last weekend and lost two of three at home to Wake Forest. The Blue Devils are at Liberty on Tuesday night before playing their next eight games at home, including ACC series against Pittsburgh (March 31-April 2) and Virginia Tech (April 7-9).

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Here is a recap of each game this weekend:

On Thursday, Duke grabbed a three-run lead early before a couple of UNC hits led to all six of its runs.

Alex Stone hit a two-run home run in the first inning for Duke, and then Devin Obee drove in the Blue Devils’ final run with a double in the second. In the last seven innings, Duke had four hits and stranded eight runners.

Colby Wilkerson hit a bases-loaded double that tied the game at 3-3 later in the second. The last scoring of the game was in the fourth, when Mac Horvath hit a three-run homer off of Owen Proksch (2-1).

Duke used seven pitchers, none of them recording more than five outs.

On Friday, UNC scored first and led by two before Duke rallied in the late innings.

The only run of the first four innings came on UNC catcher Tomas Frick’s first-inning single.

Duke took a lead in the fifth on RBI singles by Damon Lux and Giovanni DiGiacomo, and Andrew Fischer’s solo homer in the sixth gave the Blue Devils a 3-1 lead.

UNC reversed Duke’s two-run lead into a two-run deficit, first with Johnny Castagnozzi’s two-run single, and then scoring additional runs on a passed ball and a wild pitch.

Lux homered in the seventh to bring the Blue Devils within one. DiGiacomo had an RBI groundout to tie the game in the eighth, which preceded Alex Mooney’s two-out, three-run homer that proved the difference.

Jonathan Santucci pitched the first four innings for Duke, which used five pitchers. Fran Oschel III (2-0) earned the win by pitching 2 2/3 innings without allowing a run and striking out five, while James Tallon picked up a four-out save, three of which came via strikeout.

On Saturday, Mooney and Fischer hit RBI doubles in the third inning to give Duke a one-run lead, but UNC scored quickly after with homers and mostly shut down Duke’s offense afterward.

Castagnozzi hit a game-tying solo homer in the fourth, and then Horvath’s three-run homer in the fifth proved to be enough cushion for UNC (18-6, 4-3) to win the game and series.

Duke scratched across a run in the sixth to make it a two-run game. The Blue Devils got two two-out runners in the eighth, but UNC’s Will Sandy shut the door from there.

Alex Gow (2-2) started and pitched four innings for Duke, and was charged with allowing all five runs. Duke’s bullpen combined for four shutout innings, that effort coming from Charlie Bielenson, Proksch, Aidan Weaver and Edward Hart.