Another dominant start from Marcus Stroman was enough to get Duke past Virginia Friday night, but Duke could not make up any ground in the ACC standings after dropping both ends of a Saturday doubleheader to the Cavaliers at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
“We’re battling for that eight spot [in the ACC tournament] so every ACC win is critically important,” head coach Sean McNally said. “We played well Friday, but Saturday Virginia put some pressure on us and we weren’t as competitive.”
The Blue Devils (15-26, 7-14 in the ACC) are now two games out of eighth place with nine conference matchups remaining.
Stroman limited the Cavaliers (26-14-1, 11-10) to three runs over seven innings Friday en route to a 6-3 victory. The junior right-hander added nine strikeouts to his Division I-leading season total of 102, while walking three.
Virginia got on the board first on a wild pitch in the second inning, but a four-run fourth inning put Duke up for good.
Walks to catcher Mike Rosenfield and Mark Lumpa started the rally, with freshman Grant McCabe knocking in Rosenfeld on a single up the middle. Lumpa and McCabe then pulled off a double steal—Lumpa stealing home for Duke’s second run—before shortstop Angelo La Bruna drove McCabe home with a single to left center and eventually scored on an error by Cavalier second baseman Keith Werman.
Virginia chipped away at the Blue Devil lead with a run in both the fifth and sixth innings, but the Duke lineup tacked on two runs of its own before David Putnam closed out the game with a strikeout of Jared King—who went 0-for-5 with five strikeouts—for his fifth save of the season.
The first game Saturday, though, King hit three doubles and knocked in two runs as Virginia won 12-3. The Blue Devils jumped out to an early 3-1 lead due to RBI-doubles from La Bruna and David Perkins in the second and a leadoff triple from Will Piwnica-Worms—who came around to score on a Rosenfeld RBI-single—in the third inning.
Three Duke errors in the fifth and sixth gave the Cavalier batters too many chances, though, and Virginia put the game out of reach with a three-run fifth and six-run sixth. Six of the eight runs were unearned.
“We didn’t defend at all,” McNally said. “We’ve defended at a pretty high mark all year, and defense has been a trademark of this program. So [the three errors] were really frustrating.”
Robert Huber took the rubber for the second game of the doubleheader—rescheduled from Sunday to avoid expected inclement weather—but gave up nine earned runs over 5.1 innings as Virginia cruised to a 10-3 win. Huber issued six walks and failed to record a strikeout.
Cavalier third baseman Stephen Bruno—who went 5-for-6 in the early game—continued his hot streak by homering in the opening frame. Duke responded, as Rosenfeld doubled to lead off the second and eventually came around to tie the game.
Virginia again broke the game open in the fifth and sixth innings, however, scoring three and five runs, respectively, to make it 10-2.
If not for Piwnica-Worms the score may have been more lopsided—the senior center fielder ended the fifth inning on an “unbelievable” diving catch at the warning track, McNally said.
“We’ve been incredibly spoiled having Will out there for four years,” McNally said. “It was great to see Will being Will. He has been unbelievable captain, and a great leader. When he moves on we’ll probably miss him even more than we realize.”
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