Duke sealed the series win against No. 7 Florida State Saturday with nearly flawless defense, but a few miscues and bad bounces in the field doomed the Blue Devils’ chances at a sweep.
The Seminoles snapped Duke’s seven-game winning streak with a 4-3 victory Sunday afternoon on Senior Day at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, putting a damper on the Blue Devils’ most impressive weekend of the season. Duke committed two errors and threw two wild pitches to help Florida State do most of its damage with three runs in the fifth and sixth innings.
"You look at all three games, they were all neck and neck, and they just happened to come out on top today," freshman Jimmy Herron said. "We knew coming into this weekend we could make some noise and took the first two, and we had a shot here today, but it didn’t happen."
Duke (31-21, 12-15 in the ACC) entered the fifth frame with a 2-1 advantage, but the Seminoles rallied to score two runs in the frame to take their first lead of the weekend. Leadoff hitter Taylor Wells drilled a home run to the patio in the right-field bleachers to lead off the inning, and senior John Sansone smacked a double off the Blue Monster in left field to put the go-ahead run in scoring position.
Senior Jackson Lueck then hit a grounder to third baseman to Jack Labosky, but reached first safely when Labosky could not handle a tough hop and bobbled the ball. After Lueck and Sansone both advanced 90 feet on a wild pitch in the dirt by Blue Devil starter Brian McAfee, cleanup hitter Cal Raleigh hit a high pop-up that looked sure to be Duke’s first out of the inning.
But shortstop Zack Kone lost the ball in the sun and it dropped to the dirt untouched, allowing Raleigh to reach first safely and loading the bases with no outs.
McAfee struck out Quincy Nieporte looking for the first out of the inning, but Dylan Busby blooped a hit to left-center field as second baseman Max Miller attempted to make an over-the-shoulder catch, but saw the ball pop out of his glove and drop in. Sansone trotted around to score, but the Blue Devils minimized the damage when Lueck was thrown out in a rundown between third base and home plate.
"We had some kind of bad luck there in the fifth," Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. "Max did everything he could to kind of corral that ball out in shallow center with his back to the infield. We had a chance to get off the field there without that second run scoring."
Duke tied the game in the bottom of the fifth when Labosky led off with a double down the right-field line and scored on two groundouts, but another error helped Florida State (33-17, 15-8) pull in front for good in the top of the sixth. With two outs and the bases empty, Walls grounded to the left side to Kone, who spun and jumped as he bounced a throw past first baseman Justin Bellinger. Walls advanced to second on the error and scored on Sansone’s third double of the day.
The Blue Devils did not have a hit the rest of the way against the Seminole bullpen.
Duke loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning but could not score after a shallow flyout by Justin Bellinger and strikeouts by Michael Smiciklas and Cris Perez—a missed opportunity that came back to haunt the Blue Devils in a one-run game.
"That probably was our undoing because we had them on the ropes there in the first," Pollard said. "We’ve got to deliver a blow right there and push a couple across. We didn’t do that, and that may have been the difference in the ballgame."
Duke rebounded to strike first in the second inning when Kone reached on an error by second baseman Matt Henderson and Herron drove him in with a two-out double off the left-wield wall.
Herron had three hits for the second straight day for the Blue Devils and finished the series with five doubles—four of them bouncing off the Blue Monster.
"That’s a big wall, and usually if I hit it, it’s a double every time," Herron said. "If I get something soft and I can just get a barrel on it and get it to left, I have a good chance to hit it off that wall. Just trying to hit the ball hard usually takes care of itself."
Florida State tied the contest at one in the fourth frame after Nieporte was hit by a pitch to lead off, advanced to second on a wild pitch, moved to third on a single by Busby and scored on a sacrifice fly to deep left field by Ben DeLuzio.
But Duke immediately retook the lead on sophomore Peter Zyla’s first career home run to lead off the bottom half of the frame. The drive snuck over the right-field wall, but the Blue Devils could not hold off the Seminoles for the third straight day.
Duke sits at 10th place in the ACC at the end of the weekend’s action and looks to solidify a spot in the conference tournament at the DBAP when it begins its last series of the regular season Thursday at Pittsburgh.
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