Blue Devils back on track with sweep of Rams at DBAP

Duke made sure to keep its new home at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park tidy over the weekend, sweeping Fordham in dominating fashion. The Blue Devils (4-3) eked by the Rams (0-6) Friday, 5-4, but used big innings to dispatch Fordham 11-4 and 8-3 in the next two contests.

“It’s great for us to get in this ballpark and get comfortable playing here,” Duke head coach Sean McNally said. “It certainly exceeded our expectations. It was a fun weekend to be down here and to win three games and really generate some momentum.”

Fordham almost stole the show in the series opener. Trailing 4-3 going into the ninth inning, the Rams’ designated hitter, Chris Walker, tattooed an RBI double off the center field wall to even the score.

In the bottom of the frame, a Jake Lemmerman single and a Fordham fielding error helped Duke get runners on first and second with two outs. And in the Blue Devils’ last chance, Dennis O’Grady lined a single to right field, sending Lemmerman sliding across the plate for the win.

“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” O’Grady said. “With two outs, I knew if I got a hit Jake would score.”

On Saturday, Duke left nothing in doubt from the start. The Blue Devils exploded for eight runs in the first two innings and never looked back, cruising to an 11-4 victory. Will Piwnica-Worms drove in four and scored three times and Gabriel Saade added three hits and two RBIs. O’Grady and Christopher Manno combined for four innings of scoreless relief to keep the Rams’ bats at bay.

In the series finale, Duke’s offense came alive in the sixth inning, batting around the order to post five runs and four hits. Senior Jeremy Gould blasted an RBI double high off the Blue Monster in left field and was quickly brought around by Piwnica-Worms’s triple off the right field wall. Saade’s home run to right in the eighth put an end to any hopes Fordham had of coming back.

“We had a couple of good innings,” McNally said. “We’d like to be more consistent out there, but I like the way our guys kept competing and found a way to get to their starter today. We’ll need all hands on deck all year.”