In between every one of her pitches, Cassidy Curd makes eye contact with Kelly Torres, her catcher, and takes a few deep breaths. Then she leans back, putting her weight on one leg, winds her arms and hurls a neon-yellow softball at the batter. More often than not, she strikes that batter out.
That’s exactly what Curd did Wednesday evening when No. 2 Duke faced Charlotte for a midweek home game Wednesday evening, which is how the Blue Devils shut down the 49ers 6-1. The sophomore southpaw pitched 4.1 innings, allowing no runs and two hits and throwing seven strikeouts. Curd spearheaded a strict defensive effort that held Charlotte runless until the final inning and watched her teammates break into energetic offense in the fifth inning to seal a safe nonconference win at home.
“I don’t think we were at our best today. There are some things that we want to continue to work on, especially going into an ACC series,” said head coach Marissa Young. “But I’m definitely proud of the way that they were able to compete and walk away with a significant win even at not at their best.”
Young’s critiques didn’t apply to everyone though. Curd and Torres hadn’t let Charlotte do anything like make a run.
“Kelly’s the person who always brings me back down to earth,” Curd said.
Lucky number … five? Things were going slowly for Duke (30-3, 10-2 in the ACC) until the bottom of the fifth.
When it was time for the Blue Devils to hit, senior Claire Davidson stepped up to bat while sophomore D'Auna Jennings got ready to sprint from her loaded position at second base. Davidson swung: The ball flew across the park, seemed to hover over the stadium’s black fence, threatening to drop just before it, but then disappeared from sight, falling behind the wall and letting Davidson and Jennings jog safely to home base.
The stadium — packed for a combination Pride Night and Bark at the Park event — exploded. Charlotte fans groaned. Up until that swing, the 49ers (21-14) had been well within reach of a victory against the Blue Devils. It had been an eerily quiet 1-0 game. Now it was a loud one.
The fifth didn’t seem to end. The top of the inning had come and gone in a moment, the only event of the short period being a switch-up of Duke pitchers, Curd to senior Jala Wright.
“Jala came in and mixed things up with her speed,” Young said.
The bottom of the inning, however, dragged on and on, the home team seemingly electrified by Davidson’s homer. Senior Francesca Frelick gleefully hugged Davidson, spraying her in the face with her Gatorade water bottle, then got ready to swing herself. Frelick watched as Aminah Vega hit and sent herself safely to second base, then stepped up to bat. Charlotte switched its pitcher — its first change — from junior Sam Gress to redshirt senior Georgeanna Barefoot, who set Frelick up for a nice swing that the 49ers’ outfield caught. It sent Frelick back to the dugout but gave Vega enough time to snatch the third run of the inning.
Torres and Ana Gold swung, hit and ran, so that by the time Amiah Burgess stepped up to bat, Duke had second and third bases loaded. Burgess served her teammates well, earning them enough of a berth to turn loaded bases into complete runs, the fourth and fifth of the inning.
The fifth inning finally ended when Barefoot struck out redshirt sophomore Jada Baker. The sixth was less eventful — Charlotte didn’t get a run off pitches from Wright, who faced four batters, allowed one hit and struck out one batter in the 1.2 innings she stood on the mound. Duke didn’t make any moves, either. Jennings made it to second base but went out when the outfield caught Davidson’s ball. A fast strikeout on Vega put the game in its final inning.
The last half inning of the game gave Duke a chance to show its defensive strength. The infield impressed with lightning-quick reflexes to pass the ball around the field and protect its bases. But it didn’t have perfect defensive strength at the end of the game: Graduate pitcher Dani Drogemuller closed out the mound for the Blue Devils and let Charlotte’s Cori Hoffler make a run just moments before the game’s end.
“Even her mistakes — she was able to stay mentally tough and work through them,” Young said of Drogemuller. The coach added that her team’s defense in the final inning didn’t help the pitcher much.
But the 49ers were perhaps bound to earn a run given the personal stakes. Duke’s hitting coach, Taylor Wike, left her job as associate head coach at Charlotte to join Young’s program in July. Plus, the 49ers host one of the most competitive nonconference teams the Blue Devils have faced all season.
“We all knew they were going to come out guns blazing,” Curd said.
Duke looks to the weekend for its next event, a three-game series at home against Tobacco Road rival North Carolina starting Friday at 6 p.m.
Guns blazing even more.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.