There is still a door that needs to be kicked down.

Duke’s baseball program has checked off a lot of boxes for success over the past few seasons. The Blue Devils added an ACC tournament championship last season, their second of the last four years. Duke has been in six of the last eight NCAA tournaments — that occurring after the program went 55 years between appearances.

And yet … there’s that ultimate goal that remains.

Omaha.

Duke hasn’t been to the College World Series since 1961. Coach Chris Pollard has elevated the program over the last decade and seemingly done everything up to taking a trip to the pinnacle of college baseball in mid-June.

There’s a chance the Blue Devils, ranked in the top 12 of each of the five national polls and as low as No. 9 (Perfect Game), break through that glass ceiling this year.

“A lot of expectations for our team this year and we’ve gotta be good at managing that,” Pollard said. “But we’re excited about the group we have.”

Excitement and optimism starts with a projected lineup that returns five players — Ben Miller, AJ Gracia, Macon Winslow, Tyler Albright and Wallace Clark — who either started or played key roles last year. Two grad transfers from Harvard are expected to start in the field — Ben Rounds (outfielder) and Jake Berger (second baseman). Another transfer, Jake Hyde (Georgetown), should have another outfield spot, and sophomore Sam Harris will receive a healthy share of at-bats at DH.

Duke has spent the last two seasons relying heavily on its bullpen and often using openers, piecing things together one inning at a time.

That’s not the plan going into this season.

“I would love to get back to using our starters a little more traditionally,” Pollard said. “Of course, we said that this time last year and we still leaned on our bullpen a lot.”

The starters for Duke’s first three games will be sophomore lefty Kyle Johnson, senior righty Ryan Higgins, and junior left-hander James Tallon. There will be some things to be ironed out with pitching hierarchy early in the season.

“We’re a little more of the mindset of building this staff from the front end to the back end,” Pollard said. “But, being able to figure out who slots in as a starter, who’s in that long role, and who’s in the back end is one of the most important things we’ve got to figure out early on.

“I’d really like to have it settled before ACC play.”

Duke starts the season this weekend with a three-game series against visiting Cincinnati. That, along with all of Duke’s home games, will be at Jack Coombs Field, which is being renovated as a means of updating the on-campus venue — and improving the chances of hosting a regional.

New this season will be the dugouts, turf field and field dimensions, with fences coming in slightly to be more of a balanced ballpark, Pollard said.

“It’s going to change the park a little bit,” Pollard said. “It’s definitely going to play a little more offensive. I think it’ll have a good balance, I think it’ll play true. …

“You can definitely in a BP round or a sim game, notice some balls getting out that wouldn’t have gotten out (at) this time last year.”

There are more changes to the ballpark scheduled over the next two years, including a new bullpen, outdoor hitting facility, group hospitality areas behind the outfield fence, upgraded tiered lawn seating on the first base line, a new player development lab/indoor training facility, and upgraded facility lighting and player development technology.