For seven innings, Duke and Campbell were locked up in a pitchers’ duel. Two innings and 11 total runs later, the Blue Devils escaped shaky pitching in the bottom of the ninth to secure a 9-7 victory.
“We’re excited,” head coach Sean McNally said. “I thought we played very well. Campbell is having a great season. I thought it was big for our club to score nine [runs] on a Tuesday. That was really the key tonight.”
Duke (13-17), which has relied on its pitching to win ballgames this season, had scored more than one run in only four of its past nine games. From the start, the Blue Devils ensured that this would not be the case Tuesday night. Mike Rosenfeld connected on an RBI single and Will Piwnica-Worms hit a line drive into the left-centerfield gap to score two more in the third inning, giving Duke an early 3-0 lead. Following the successful half-inning, however, the Blue Devils’ offense went cold, failing to score in the following three frames.
The bats came alive again in the eighth inning.
With one out, Piwnica-Worms secured a single and Mark Lumpa followed suit in the next at bat. Jeff Kremer was then intentionally walked after a wild pitch to load the bases. Following the Kremer walk, a total of six runs were scored, five of which were a result of three RBI singles.
The offensive explosion ballooned the Blue Devil advantage to seven runs. According to McNally, the offensive barrage was the difference maker in the contest.
“We scored three runs early and then [Campbell] kind of chipped away at us,” McNally said. “Piwnica-Worms had a base hit that kind of got us going. After that, we used timely hitting, drew a couple walks, and it just all kind of snowballed. That was important for us to break it open late.”
Duke started Nick Piscotty on the mound against the potent Campbell (25-5) offense. Piscotty pitched 4.2 innings, allowing two earned runs while notching four strikeouts on the night. Following the starting effort, reliever Dillon Haviland, who has had to fight off injuries this season, had one of his best efforts of the season. Haviland (1-0) gave up just two hits in 3.1 innings of work to earn his first victory of the season.
“Piscotty gave us another solid spark [today],” McNally said. “But really Dillon was the story. He pitched on the weekends for us last year. He’ll be a key piece going forward and we’re really excited he allowed us to stretch [the game] out in the 8th.”
Although Haviland excelled in relief, Drew Van Orden struggled to find his comfort zone coming out of the bullpen. With a comfortable seven run lead, Van Orden allowed five runs on five hits against only six batters faced, including a Jake Kirkland three-run home run that ended the reliever’s night.
Senior David Putnam was then brought in to try to stop the bleeding. Putnam worked quickly, forcing a groundout and then a strike out to stop the rally and secure his team-leading fourth save of the season.
“They got the hits,” McNally said. “They’ve got a good club, a good lineup. That left an opportunity for [David] Putnam to come in and solidify that closer spot and get [the final] strikeout.”
Duke will try to keep its offensive production up this Friday when the team plays the first game of a three-game series against Clemson.
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