Heading into the 10th inning, the men’s baseball team and Elon are tied 8-8, and it’s been that way for a week.
Since the Feb. 23 meeting at Elon was postponed because of darkness, the Blue Devils (6-6) and the Phoenix (7-4) will head into extra innings at Jack Coombs Field today at 2 p.m. Once a winner is determined, the teams will play another nine innings—the match that was originally slated to begin at 3 p.m.
Although the Blue Devils dropped both of their games against Elon last year, Duke could earn two wins in just a single day’s work.
“We’re all really excited,” pitcher Paul DeMarco said. “We have a chance to go out and win a quick one. That could give us some momentum, and we could possibly take two.”
With a Phoenix on every base and only one out in the bottom of the ninth Feb. 23, Danny Otero managed to get out of the inning unscathed. He struck out one and forced the last batter of the night to ground out. The reliever-turned-starter leads the pitching staff with a 1.44 ERA and has already registered 17 strikeouts, second to veteran Greg Burke’s 25.
Collectively the Blue Devil pitchers have kept their opponents to fewer than four earned runs per game. The same opponents, however, are averaging 5.77 total runs per game against Duke. The Blue Devils’ 23 errors in the field, which resulted in 24 unearned runs, can account for this anomaly.
Fielding, an area on which the Blue Devils have concentrated all year, continues to be problematic for Duke, which has not played an errorless game since its first of the season, Feb. 5. The team, however, believes that it is improving.
“We’re getting lots of groundball repetitions in practice,” freshman Ron Causey said. “The infield has improved the most, and it showed Sunday [against Army]. There were a lot of hits that could’ve snuck through the infield that they got. That gave us the chance to come back and win against Army.”
Similarly, the Phoenix have played only two clean games of baseball this season, both early in the year.
At the plate, Elon exploited early-season opponents, but since their fourth game, the Phoenix’s collective batting average has steadily declined from .368 to .284 after their recent series against Auburn.
“We know they’re going to come out and have a good arm,” Causey said. “We know we have to get that ball in play. Guys aren’t going to be throwing a long time, and so we want to get into their bullpen especially for the longer game.”
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