Duke’s baseball team has had better starts to seasons.

The Blue Devils lost two of three games to visiting Cincinnati this weekend at Jack Coombs Field.

Duke fell victim in the season opener to some small-ball plays. The Blue Devils won the middle game on Saturday night, a marathon of a 12-inning win. And then Cincinnati rolled out of town with a blowout win on Sunday.

Cincinnati was 32-25 last season, and 17-13 in the Big 12. The Bearcats are picked to finish 10th in the 14-team league this season.

Here is a recap of Duke’s loss in the season opener.

Here is how the other two games this weekend played out:

On Saturday night, shortstop Wallace Clark capped a 4-for-5 night with a walk-off home run, giving Duke its only win of the weekend.

Clark launched the first pitch he saw from Ty Barnett over the fence in left field. That came with one out, and it came in the bottom half of an inning that saw Duke turn a double play after a leadoff single.

Clark also had RBI singles in the fourth and fifth innings. The latter of those came in a four-run inning for the Blue Devils, which put them ahead 5-2. They gave up three runs in the sixth, which is where the score stood until Clark’s blast.

Duke’s other runs came via sacrifice fly by Jake Hyde, double by Tyler Albright, and bases-loaded hit by pitch by Ben Rounds.

Ryan Higgins started for Duke and allowed one run in four innings, giving up three hits and a walk. Cincinnati tied the game by scoring four runs (three earned) against Gabriel Nard in his 1 2/3 innings of work.

Gavin Brown recorded an out and Ryan Calvert pitched a scoreless seventh. Owen Proksch recorded six strikeouts in a hitless 2 2/3, and Aidan Weaver pitched the last 2 1/3, allowing one hit and striking out two.

On Sunday, the first inning was scoreless and that was about the only good news for Duke.

The Blue Devils gave up runs in every inning that followed. Three of them were only one-run innings and another two were two-run innings; the Bearcats’ sixth-run seventh really blew open the game, though.

Duke used eight pitchers and each of them was charged with allowing at least one run. None of them recorded more than five outs.

James Tallon (1 2/3 innings) started and gave up one hit, but walked four and was charged for three runs. Jack Hedrick got one out and gave up three runs. Mark Hindy gave up a couple of runs in his 1 1/3, and Henry Zatkowski gave up a run in 1 2/3.

David Boisvert gave up two unearned runs. Collins Black was charged with all six of those seventh-inning runs. Max Stammel gave up an unearned run without allowing a hit in his 1 1/3 innings; Bryce Brannon gave up a run in the ninth.

Duke’s highlights at the plate were a two-run homer by Macon Winslow, solo homers by Kyle Johnson and Albright, and an RBI triple by Albright.