COLUMBIA, S.C.—After a slow start to their first NCAA tournament since 1961, the Blue Devils are in danger of having an extremely short stay in their latest Big Dance.
Following nine off-days after its loss in the opening round of the ACC tournament, third-seeded Duke was crushed 11-1 by second-seeded UNC-Wilmington Friday afternoon at Founders Park in the first game of the Columbia NCAA tournament regional. The Blue Devils will face elimination Saturday at noon when they take on No. 1 seed South Carolina, which fell to fourth-seeded Rhode Island 5-4 Friday evening.
Duke got off to a slow start Friday, with the Seahawks getting to starting pitcher Brian McAfee early and exploding for 11 runs in the second and third innings. The Blue Devils also struggled to get their offense going against UNC-Wilmington starter Ryan Foster, who carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning and notched a complete game en route to his 13th win of the season—the most in the country.
“We got punched in the mouth pretty good by a very good UNC-Wilmington offense,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. “We got down early and I think once we dusted ourselves off and started to compete one pitch at a time over the last five innings of the ball game, we played okay, but we had dug ourselves in a very big hole at that point.”
After going down in order in the first inning, the Seahawks (40-17) broke the game open in the second frame against McAfee.
What started as a leadoff single for UNC-Wilmington cleanup hitter Nick Feight—who leads the NCAA in total bases and ranks second in home runs—ended with six runs on the scoreboard for the Seahawks. McAfee gave up three runs after having hitters in two-strike holes, walking Kennard McDowell with the bases loaded then giving up a two-run double to Steve Linkous.
The third inning was not any easier for McAfee, as the Cornell graduate transfer gave up consecutive singles to start the inning. Senior relief pitcher Nick Hendrix replaced McAfee but was unable to stop the bleeding, as both inherited runners scored and UNC-Wilmington tacked on three more runs to take an 11-0 lead and showed why six batters in its lineup hit at least .300.
Friday's start marked the first time this season that McAfee failed to pitch at least five innings, which he had done in 26 consecutive starts going back to 2013.
“[The Seahawks] were incredible, any time I missed a spot they let me know. Obviously, [I] didn’t have my best stuff today,” McAfee said. “They hit breaking pitches pretty well. They were on time for pretty much everything. Hats off to them.”
Despite the nightmarish start, the Blue Devils (33-23) can take comfort knowing they shut down UNC-Wilmington after the third inning, with Bailey Clark tossing five shutout innings. The junior—who entered the contest with a 6.13 ERA—gave up just one hit and recorded four strikeouts.
As Clark found his rhythm on the mound, Foster never relented against a Duke lineup that hit .280 in its final 33 games of the regular season to go 23-10 in that stretch and earn an NCAA tournament berth. After Pollard moved sophomore Justin Bellinger into the cleanup spot of the lineup, freshman leadoff hitter Jimmy Herron and sophomore Jack Labosky joined Bellinger in hitting better than .330 during those contests.
But Foster had little trouble with the Blue Devils' leading trio, holding all three hitless Friday.
The right-hander cruised through the first half of the contest, surrendering his first hit in the fifth inning on a single by junior Cris Perez.
Foster’s only blemish came in the sixth inning, when freshman Chris Proctor led off the inning with his second triple of the season off the right field wall. The next batter, Labosky, found a way to bring home Duke’s only run of the game with a sacrifice fly to center field. Foster scattered eight hits on the day to lower his ERA to 2.30.
The Blue Devils will look to get off to a stronger start Saturday against South Carolina to keep their season alive with graduate student Trent Swart on the mound.
“From this point over, it’s a one-game season,” Pollard said. “That’s really not a new experience for us. When you start 1-7 in the ACC, we had our backs way up against the wall, we had an elimination game type of the mindset really over the second half of the season because we knew we already used up our margin of error. Our guys will be comfortable in that setting because we played in it the whole second half of the season.”
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