After two games, almost 10 innings and two late-game rallies, Duke's weekend series boiled down to one at-bat in a tie game with two outs and the Blue Devils' best hitter at the plate to win the game.
It took 12 pitches and six foul balls with two strikes, but Nate Freiman made sure the Blue Devils wouldn't need a third comeback to win the rubber game of a critical series.
The senior lined a single through the infield to score Tom Luciano and give Duke an 8-7 win over the Wolfpack Sunday at Jack Coombs Field. The victory, coupled with the teams' doubleheader split Saturday, gave Duke its first ACC series win since March 22 and enhanced its chances of making its first ACC tournament since 2005.
"Realistically, being at home with a chance to win, it was a game we had to have," head coach Sean McNally said of Sunday's result. "And then not only winning it, but the way we did, makes it even better."
Duke (24-13, 9-9 in the ACC) rallied from a 5-0 deficit late in the game, but fell into another hole when the Wolfpack (18-17, 7-11) pushed across two runs in the top of the 10th inning to take a 7-5 lead. With the series on the line, McNally huddled his team before the home half of the inning and told his players to shelve their feelings of disappointment until after the game, if they were still relevant.
Minutes later, pinch hitter Tim Sherlock led off with a two-strike double to right-center field, and when shortshop Jake Lemmerman walked on five pitches, the Blue Devils suddenly had the winning run in the batter's box.
McNally opted to let Gabriel Saade hit instead of bunt, as the second baseman had homered twice over the weekend, and on the first pitch, Saade hit a grounder through the left side to score Sherlock and slice the deficit.
With the tying run on second, third baseman Ryan McCurdy bunted, but the Wolfpack secured the force at third base, leaving the Blue Devils with men on first and second and one out. Will Piwnica-Worms flied out to short center, and senior catcher Matt Williams battled N.C. State pitcher Kyle Rutter to a 3-2 count.
Williams, who caught all 28 innings this weekend, said he specifically concentrated on seeing the ball, and when Rutter fired a fastball on the outside corner, Williams sent it back over Rutter's left shoulder. Second baseman Andrew Ciencin laid out in a full extension, and as Williams saw the flight of the ball off the bat, his heart sank, he said. But the ball narrowly flew past Ciencin into the outfield and Lemmerman scampered around third to score the tying run and send the Duke bench into a frenzy.
"It's easy to remember the at-bat that ended the game, but the key to this game was Matt's at-bat," Freiman said. "He's in a situation, we're down with two strikes and two outs-that was unbelievable. He was the real key to that inning."
Freiman made sure Williams' heroics did not go to waste.
Freiman had been in a similar position in the first game of the series, when he came to the plate with a man on first and his team down two runs in the bottom of the ninth. That time, he grounded out to shortstop.
This time, with runners on the corners, Freiman immediately took two fastballs for strikes. Ten pitches later-including five consecutive foul balls with a 2-2 count-Freiman pulled an outside fastball and hit a hard ground ball through the hole between third base and shortstop. N.C. State shortstop Dallas Poulk smothered the ball with his backhand, but when he went to transfer the ball from his glove to his throwing hand, it escaped from his grasp and Luciano scored easily to end the series. Freiman had put his head down to try to beat out the ground ball, and when he saw assistant coach Jonathan Anderson start celebrating in the first base coach's box, he realized the game was over.
The Blue Devils swarmed Luciano and Freiman, giving them a different type of emotion than the one they had felt just a few batters earlier.
Williams went so far as saying the win over the Wolfpack was more important than Duke's series win over then-No. 1 North Carolina earlier this year, because it had more implications for the conference standings. If the eight-team ACC tournament started today, the Blue Devils would be the final team to qualify, and they have a two-game cushion in the win column over N.C. State, which sits in ninth place in the league.
"It's the first time we've been able to come from behind," said Freiman, who is aiming to qualify for the first ACC tournament of his career. "It gives a lot of people confidence and it's great for everyone's morale."
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