Duke lost to a red-hot Campbell University squad 9-3 at Jack Coombs Field Wednesday afternoon.
For much of the game, the Blue Devils trailed the Fighting Camels by two, but in the ninth inning Campbell’s bats caught fire, putting up four insurance runs to put the contest out of reach.
Ryan Mattes started on the mound for Campbell (7-1) and pitched five innings while giving up three runs. Duke (4-3) scored the first run of the game in the second inning on a home run by first baseman Chris Marconcini, but the Fighting Camels quickly responded.
In the top of the third, Campbell’s Clayton Brown hit a lead-off triple off Blue Devil starting pitcher James Marvel, a highly regarded freshman making his second collegiate start. Brown later scored on a sacrifice fly from Ben McQuown. Then in the fourth, the Fighting Camels took the lead off third baseman Elijah Trail’s booming home run to left field and never looked back.
“I just tried to swing as hard as I could,” Trail said. “Luckily it just worked out.” Duke responded in the bottom of the fourth inning with two runs to cut the lead to one, but never scored again. Relief pitcher Logan Self replaced Mattes to start the sixth inning and pitched a scoreless final four innings, giving up just one hit and one walk while striking out four en route to the save.
“[Self did a] tremendous job today,” Campbell head coach Greg Goff said. “[He has] a lot of courage. Logan has really worked hard…. We just feel like if we can give him the ball in the middle innings, he can get us to the late innings…. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
Although this was a tough loss for Duke—its first loss at Jack Coombs Field after sweeping Bucknell this weekend—Blue Devil head coach Chris Pollard hopes that his younger players can learn from it and move forward.
“We ran a lot of really young guys out there today, a lot of guys that don’t have a ton of college experience,” Pollard said. “[Our young guys need to] do the best job [they] can of controlling the running game, but then when it’s time to execute the pitch, you execute the pitch.”
Duke looks to bounce back from Wednesday’s game when it take on Towson at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park Friday.
An original version of this article said it was James Marvel's first career start. The Chronicle regrets this error.
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