After a full week off for exams, the Blue Devils showed no signs of rust and extended their winning streak to four in a row against a dangerous nonconference foe.
No. 11 Duke swept a doubleheader against Gardner-Webb with a 13-4 win to start the day and a 10-4 victory under the lights Sunday at Jack Coombs Field. With intermittent rain falling during both games and a lightning delay that interrupted the first contest, it took more than eight hours from the first pitch until the action was done for the day.
"I feel like we’re absolutely in the best place we’ve been all year offensively," Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. "They threw all their best arms at us in game two. We had to go through their No. 1 starter and then their best relievers out of the pen. We saw every one of them in game two, and they’ve got some really nice pieces. That’s a very good team that we swept a doubleheader from."
Chris Proctor got the scoring started with a two-run homer in the first inning of the first game, and the Blue Devils broke the game open with a five-run fourth inning that featured a 497-foot long ball off the bat of junior Griffin Conine for his 10th homer of the year.
But sophomore starter Adam Laskey ran into some trouble working with an 8-0 lead in the top of the fifth inning, walking three batters before he was replaced by Ryan Day during what turned into a four-run frame to cut Duke's lead in half.
Jimmy Herron singlehandedly tacked on a run for the Blue Devils in the bottom of the fifth, singling, stealing second and advancing to third on an error before coming home on a wild pitch.
A lightning delay sent both teams inside for more than an hour, but Duke's offense picked up where it left off when it returned to the field. The Blue Devils quickly scored two runs in the sixth inning and added another pair in the seventh to lock up the comfortable victory.
"We had a really, really good approach, and it absolutely started with our preparation during this week of practice," Pollard said. "That’s not easy to do this time of year, spend a lot of time hitting off a slider machine or spend a lot of time hitting off of a machine throwing you 90 or 91-mile-an-hour fastballs, but that’s a luxury we had because we had a lot of practice this week, and it really helped us be in a good place offensively."
After about 40 minutes between games, the two teams were back on the field again and Duke once again took an early lead in the bottom of the second inning. Senior captain Max Miller hit an infield single that the Runnin' Bulldogs' shortstop couldn't field cleanly, and classmate Jack Labosky doubled him home with a deep drive over the left fielder's head.
Mitch Stallings cruised through the first four innings on the mound for the Blue Devils, but Gardner-Webb took the lead in the fifth when junior Justin Kunz hit an RBI triple just out of Conine's reach in right field and scored on a ground-ball single that trickled through the right side of the infield.
Duke needed just two batters to tie it back up in the bottom half of the inning, as Taylor doubled into the left-center field gap and Labosky singled him home. Taylor nearly put the Blue Devils back in front an inning later, but right fielder Mason Fox made a diving catch on a sinking liner to end the inning and save a run.
Duke finally took the lead for good in the bottom of the seventh. Freshman catcher Michael Rothenberg delivered the key hit on a triple to the gap in right-center field, and Herron slapped a single up the middle. Herron stole second, advanced to third and slid home safely on a slow roller by Proctor. Joey Loperfido hit a single to drive in Proctor and Conine followed suit with an RBI double down the line to give the Blue Devils plenty of insurance.
The extra offense proved to be critical, as Ethan DeCaster gave up two runs after entering the game with just one run allowed and a spectacular 0.25 ERA on the season. Lights-out closer Labosky then moved from third base to the mound in the middle of an inning for the first time all season to shut the door and quickly worked his way out of the inning.
"We planned for it a lot. We haven’t had to do it because Ethan has been so lights out that he always gets out of his own innings, but it’s actually a good thing for us that we finally get a chance to execute that so Jack gets some experience at doing that," Pollard said. "He did an outstanding job with it."
Duke regained its cushion with four more runs in the top of the ninth, and Labosky put two runners on base but avoided a blemish by getting Fox to ground into a game-ending double play with runners on the corners. He has pitched 24 2/3 innings without giving up a run this season.
"I wasn’t really thinking about it. I thought more of it after the fact," Labosky said of his scoreless streak. "That’s probably the first time I’ve had a guy on third base in a while, but the double play was nice, just normal pitching, what I do."
Duke will return to the field Tuesday against Liberty at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park before wrapping up its home slate against No. 5 North Carolina next weekend.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.