A week and a half removed from a disappointing series loss against Notre Dame, it did not take much for the Blue Devils to get over the hump Tuesday against Campbell.
Duke cruised to a 9-0 victory against the Fighting Camels at Jack Coombs Field, highlighted by a three-run home run from sophomore Griffin Conine. After a back-and-forth 12-10 win on the road at Campbell April 12, four Blue Devil pitchers held the Fighting Camel offense in check, scattering just two singles for the team's first shutout win in more than a month.
"The guys in the middle there had to grind a little bit," Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. "But they made pitches, they stayed in the moment, they kept competing and we were able to preserve a lot of guys to be able to come back tomorrow and have a good fresh bullpen."
The Blue Devils (24-23) benefitted from some good luck to start their offensive onslaught in the bottom of the first inning, with Campbell pitcher Phil Stokes bobbling a weak grounder from Jimmy Herron to put the leadoff man on. Zack Kone then hit a chopper that bounced high off the artificial turf and over the first baseman's head for a single.
Kone led the team with three hits Tuesday and came around to score his first of two runs on an RBI single by Michael Smiciklas after Jack Labosky scored Herron with a sacrifice fly.
Duke did not need to rely on weak contact to put more runs on the board an inning later when Conine strode to the plate with two runners on and two outs. His 13th homer of the season carried just over the fence in deep right-center field to break the game open.
"I’d seen a lot of fastballs from him, so I kind of went up there with that mentality in the second at-bat that I was going to be on a fastball if I got one," Conine said. "He threw one over the plate and I just put a good swing on it."
The Weston, Fla., native also belted two long balls in the teams' first matchup this spring. He now has the eighth-most home runs in a season in program history and is in the top 10 for RBIs in a season with 54.
The 5-0 lead was more than enough for Blue Devil starter Adam Laskey and the bullpen. Laskey set down all nine batters he faced on just 30 pitches and has surrendered just two earned runs in 10 1/3 innings in his last four outings after a rocky start to the season.
"Sometimes when you pitch in this league and you get hit around a little bit, you start to shy away from contact, and when you do shy away from contact, you get in trouble," Pollard said. "Part of what he’s done a great job of is just getting back to being very aggressive."
The Fighting Camels (21-26) got their first baserunner and first hit on a walk and a single in the top of the fourth inning off reliever Karl Blum, but a routine grounder to shortstop Zack Kone ended the threat.
Fellow relief men Chris McGrath and Kevin Lewallyn shut Campbell down the rest of the way, as Duke continued adding to its lead. Freshman Erikson Nichols drove in Smiciklas with a single in the fifth inning, and four singles led to three more runs in the sixth.
The Blue Devils have now won seven straight nonconference games since falling to East Carolina March 14, and they will get their chance for revenge against the Pirates Wednesday night at 6:30 in Greenville, N.C.
Duke has lost 16 straight contests to the Pirates dating back to 1998, its longest active losing streak against any opponent, but it has one of its best chances to snap the skid against an East Carolina team that has lost 16 of its last 22 games.
Pollard has not named a starter for Wednesday's game yet but said the team will use several pitchers, and he is pleased with the way his team progressed during the exam break.
"They were committed to getting better," Pollard said. "A lot of teams don’t do that, but we used the exam break and the extra practice time to really get better and I’m very proud of that, and it showed up today."
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