It had to happen sometime.
After rattling off nine straight wins, No. 16 Duke dropped its final contest of a weekend trip to Minneapolis, Minn., falling 7-5 to Iowa Sunday afternoon in U.S. Bank Stadium. The Blue Devils took the prior two games in the ACC/Big Ten challenge, first handling Purdue 5-1 Friday and then snatching a 7-3 victory against Minnesota Saturday in extra innings.
"I thought we did a lot of things well," head coach Chris Pollard told GoDuke.com after Sunday's contest. "We took good swings. The difference in the ballgame was that [the Hawkeyes] did a good job hitting with two outs in the sixth and the seventh.... All in all, I thought we played pretty well and Iowa played pretty well.”
The Hawkeyes (5-4) made it clear Sunday that the Blue Devils (9-2) simply would not be able to ride their pitching, despite the otherworldly start to the season that the Duke staff has put on. Though sophomore righty Jack Carey went a season-high six innings on the bump, the bullpen could not stand up to Iowa's merciless bats.
Duke got on the board with two runs in the first frame and pushed the lead to 4-2 through five innings of play, in part thanks to a moonshot to the short porch in right field off the bat of redshirt sophomore Wil Hoyle. Senior Matt Mervis contributed the other run in the fifth inning, smacking a double to bring around junior Joey Loperfido.
But the Hawkeyes would not be swayed, lacing a couple of doubles and a two-run homer in the 7th inning before Blue Devil reliever Aaron Beasley could even blink, sending the sophomore southpaw to the showers after just two thirds of a frame. The triad of runs gave Iowa a 6-5 lead, one it never relinquished.
Pollard's postgame enthusiasm despite the late-inning loss was likely a byproduct of the team’s overall weekend performance, which included closing out a Minnesota team that refused to go away.
Loperfido had the game’s deciding knock, a two-out single over the second base bag to bring home two runners and give Duke a 5-3 advantage in the top of the 10th. To add insult to injury, the core of the Blue Devil order struck again, with junior Michael Rothenberg lambasting a two-bagger off of the right field wall to plate Duke’s fourth run of the inning.
“I thought it was great to have to fight our way through a baseball game like that," Pollard said. "It felt very much like an ACC game on the road, being a back-and-forth affair. You knew they were going to have an answer at some point. To lose the lead there like we did in the bottom of the eighth, we were tough enough to get off the field. We finally broke through in the top of the 10th, and we had some really good two-out hitting today."
A day prior to the victory against the Gophers (5-6), it was the combination of pitching and hitting that brought Duke a convincing win shortly after touching down in Minnesota Friday afternoon. The Blue Devils dominated Purdue (6-4) in a game in which the Boilermakers struggled to get anything going at the dish or to prevent Duke from scoring itself.
Bryce Jarvis came down from the high of his perfect game Feb. 21 to deliver another outstanding outing on the mound, going seven innings strong and whiffing 11 batters in the win. The Boilermakers got six more hits off the junior righty than Cornell did one week removed, but Jarvis managed to spread them across his innings to keep Purdue at bay.
“If there’s a starting pitcher in college baseball throwing better than him right now I’d like to see who it is,” Pollard said.
The sixth inning turned out to be the deciding one, with senior Chase Cheek and Rothenberg quickly getting aboard via a single and walk, respectively. Mervis and sophomore Ethan Murray would eventually combine to bring the two around, with freshman Chad Knight and Hoyle also bringing in a pair.
The Blue Devils slammed the door late, allowing the Boilermakers’ only run in the seventh inning before juniors Matt Dockman and Thomas Girard each protected the lead with an inning apiece.
Next, Duke will return home to take on Campbell Wednesday at Durham Bulls Athletic Park before beginning ACC play against Florida State for a three-game set this weekend.
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