Duke’s baseball team came back from a West Coast sweep and did some sweeping of its own.
The Blue Devils went to Virginia this weekend and swept the Cavaliers after losing all three games of a series last weekend at Stanford. It’s the first time in program history that Duke has swept Virginia in Charlottesville, and the first time Duke (16-9, 5-4 ACC) has swept the Cavaliers in any capacity since 1998.
“I am really proud of the response of our team this week,” coach Chris Pollard said through a news release. “We showed a lot of toughness to come back after a cross-country flight and have a solid complete performance against a good UConn team.
“Then you go on the road against an Omaha-caliber program. The thing I liked was we stayed hungry until the end. I think it would have been easy after winning the series yesterday to say, ‘Hey that is a good weekend,’ but we kept our foot on the gas.”
Here are quick recaps of each game from this past weekend:
Duke 9, Virginia 5
On Friday, Duke put up multiple runs in four consecutive innings during the middle portion of the ballgame to win the series opener.
Ben Miller’s three-run home run in the fourth inning were the game’s first runs. He drove in another run in the fifth, after Jake Berger had already tripled in a run.
Macon Winslow had an RBI double and Ben Rounds had an RBI triple in the sixth. That pair also drove in Duke’s runs in the seventh, that time with a couple of singles.
Winslow, Rounds, Miller and Tyler Albright all had two-hit games.
Gabe Nard (2-1) earned the win by pitching a scoreless 2 2/3 innings. He was the second of three pitchers the Blue Devils called upon; Owen Proksch started and gave up three runs in 3 1/3 innings, and Reid Easterly pitched the final three innings for his third save of the season.
Duke 13, Virginia 2 (7 innings)
On Saturday, the Blue Devils scored a mercy-rule win by hammering out 13 hits and drawing another seven free passes (six walks, one HBP).
Jake Hyde had the big day, going 4-for-5 with four RBI and two runs scored. Winslow, Noah Murray and AJ Gracia each had two-hit games, with Winslow driving in three runs and Gracia driving in a pair of them.
Hyde and Winslow both had home runs.
Duke again only needed to use three pitchers. Andrew Healy (2-2) pitched five innings and only allowed one run on three hits (and no walks), striking out five. Ryan Higgins had a brief appearance in which he gave up a run and recorded an out; Mark Hindy notched the last five outs the Blue Devils needed.
Duke 13, Virginia 6
On Sunday, the Blue Devils held a tenuous 6-5 lead after some back and forth in the first six innings of the game.
Duke blew things open with a six-run seventh, getting a three-run double by Wallace Clark to afford the Blue Devils some breathing room. Miller, Albright and Winslow each added RBI later in the inning, and Winslow capped Duke’s sweep with a homer in the ninth.
Miller was 3-for-6 with four RBI. Clark was 2-for-4 and in addition to those three RBI, he scored four times. Duke’s offense came on 12 hits, 10 walks, two HBPs and two errors.
Easterly (3-1) picked up the win on the mound by pitching 2 1/3 innings and allowing one unearned run.
