After pounding out 22 hits in the first two games of the series, the Blue Devil bats fell silent Sunday.
Duke was held scoreless for the first time all season and Georgia Tech plated two runs in the fourth inning and added two more in the seventh to secure a 4-0 win Sunday at Jack Coombs Field, claiming the rubber game of the three-game series.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “I credit the job that Georgia Tech did. We can learn a lot from them. I was impressed all weekend with the job they did in two-strike counts. They hit a lot of backside, groundball contact with two strikes, which is a good two-strike approach we need to learn from.”
Despite sophomore Bailey Clark’s solid performance on the mound in the first three innings in which he allowed no hits and no runs, he couldn’t prevent his first loss of the season. The Blue Devil starter yielded two walks to start the fourth inning, loaded the bases after giving up a single and then walked in the first run of the day for the Yellow Jackets (14-5, 4-2 in the ACC).
Georgia Tech extended its lead on a sacrifice fly by first baseman Thomas Smith before Clark picked up his second strikeout of the inning to end the frame.
“In the first three innings I felt pretty good,” Clark said. “Then in the fourth I don’t know what happened but I didn’t have my best stuff. We gave them too many opportunities to score. We just need to continue being tough and move forward. We have faith in the team.”
Clark (2-1) ended the game with six strikeouts in five innings of work for Duke (14-5, 2-4) but also issued a career-high four walks.
“I thought Bailey competed well and his stuff was good,” Pollard said. “He was dialed in early. He got a lot of groundball outs. Got out of the zone in the fourth, but I thought he did a decent job of minimizing it. I don’t think we pitched poorly.”
The Yellow Jackets stung reliever Sarkis Ohanian for two more runs in the seventh on four straight singles with two outs. Duke could not muster a comeback, managing just three baserunners after the fifth inning.
Georgia Tech starter Brandon Gold (3-0) continued his early-season dominance, tossing seven innings of two-hit ball and striking out nine. The right-hander now leads the ACC with a 0.61 ERA. Only three Blue Devils—first baseman Justin Bellinger, third baseman Max Miller and shortstop Kenny Koplove—registered hits, all of them singles.
The Yellow Jackets, now tied for the lead in the Coastal Division with Miami and Virginia Tech, did a better collective job than Duke at the plate, registering five more hits than the Blue Devils. Freshman right fielder Kel Johnson and senior center fielder Daniel Spingola registered two hits apiece.
The Blue Devils return to action Tuesday and Wednesday as they host Columbia in their first games of the year downtown at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
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