The season did not get off to quite the start the Blue Devils hoped for, as they lost their opening series to Cincinnati in underwhelming fashion. Friday night looked to be more of the same for Duke, as a punchy Cornell team hung on after a late push to win the first game of the weekend 11-8.
However, a tone-setting performance on the mound from Ryan Higgins helped engineer a 34-3 combined drubbing over the final two games of the weekend, giving the Blue Devils their first series win of the year. Duke found production from up and down the lineup, seeing balls find gaps in ways it had not against the Bearcats.
Friday
A slow start to the season for the 17th-ranked Blue Devils continued as they fell to the Big Red 11-8 in the series opener.
Cornell’s Carson Mayfield was the star of the show; the righty posted an incredible six hitless innings that ground Duke’s offense to a halt. The key? Getting the ball to the infielders. Mayfield induced 10 groundouts.
“He sunk it and got us on the ground … anytime we hit a ball hard on the ground, it’s right at people,” head coach Chris Pollard said. “We have some balls … that are probably 105 to 110 [miles per hour] off the bat that were hit right at people.”
The inability to find holes was just one dimension of a stretch of bad luck that has plagued the Blue Devils throughout this early stretch of the season.
This bad luck felt even more pronounced in what would become a disastrous defensive stretch in the sixth and seventh innings. The Big Red opened the sixth with a line drive off the bat of Max Jensen that easily cleared the right-field wall and marked the end of sophomore Kyle Johnson’s start. With freshman Henry Zatkowski on the rubber, Duke just could not seem to put easy plays away. Zatkowski fumbled a dribbler down the first-base line that gave Cornell’s Mark Quatrani enough time to leg it home from second. Three batters later, Luke Johnson pushed one on the ground past Ben Miller in the corner and brought in another run.
“The reality is, we should have gotten off the field in the sixth inning with only one run scored. That's just a fact. The solo home run should have been the only run in the inning that scored,” Pollard said.
The seventh-inning defensive showing was not any stronger. The Big Red got two runners on early after errors by both Miller and Wallace Clark. Jakobi Davis capitalized with a tank to dead center that resulted in a triple and two RBIs. Four more unearned runs later, and the Blue Devils didn’t get to walk off the field until they were down 10-0.
Duke managed to land its first punch back in the bottom of the seventh. Miller got the scoring started with a line drive over the left-field wall. Hyde jumped in with a two-RBI single of his own that Sam Harris followed up with a two-RBI double. Ultimately, it was too little, too late.
“I can tell you, we're making some mistakes that we don't normally make … and we've got to play through that. I thought the latter part of that game, we showed some signs of being able to do that,” Pollard said. - Josh Alms
Saturday
Behind a strong performance from Higgins and a much-needed four-RBI outing from AJ Gracia, Duke dispatched Cornell 16-2 Saturday. The win featured eight different Blue Devils with a hit and placed head coach Chris Pollard atop the all-time program ledger in total wins.
Gracia got things going with his first hit in the first inning, muscling an inside-out swing into left field for a single. Senior Wallace Clark — who led the inning off with a frozen rope to get to second — scored on the play.
From there, Duke’s offense snowballed a rally in nearly every inning. Ben Rounds’ two-RBI double and Jake Berger’s solo homer were only appetizers for what was to come in the fifth and sixth innings, where the Blue Devils scored a combined nine runs. Cornell’s pitching, which helped propel it to a surprise win Friday night, ran out of gas and finished the afternoon with 15 walks.
Duke’s arm barn, on the other hand, had no problems carving up the Big Red. It started with Higgins, who found command of every pitch in his arsenal en-route to a seven-strikeout performance. He did get into a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the fifth, but Reid Easterly was able to clean things up while limiting the damage to two runs — Cornell’s only scores of the day.
“Higgins, I thought, was the outing of the weekend for us,” Pollard said. “... He was landing the slider and he was landing the change. When you do that, guys can't sit fastball anymore. And that got them off the fastball, which opened up opportunities for the rest of our guys on the weekend.”
Success on the mound and in the box also helped assuage the Blue Devils’ nerves in the field, as Saturday marked the first game all year without an error charged to Duke. Part of this can be attributed to Pollard’s decision to swap Hyde and Gracia at first base and right field.
By the time freshman Collins Black closed things out in the ninth, the Blue Devils were coasting to a confidence-building victory and looking ahead to the rubber match Sunday. - Dom Fenoglio
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Sunday
A slow burn became an uncontrollable fire for Duke Sunday, as a nine-run fifth inning busted open the game and secured the Blue Devils’ first series win of the season.
Kyle Johnson entered the game as a pinch hitter and finished with six RBIs, while Duke’s pitching staff tallied nine strikeouts while surrendering just one run. The Blue Devil bats were deceptively quiet outside of a few big innings, but they provided plenty of juice for a 18-1 victory.
“A theme for us has been embracing adversity, and we didn't do a good job with that Friday night. I really challenged our guys with that over the last two days,” Pollard said. “... I just think we're doing a better job in those moments.”
After the first 4.5 innings of the game passed without a score, Pollard dialed up some small ball to break things open. Tyler Albright led off the bottom of the fifth with a first-pitch single, and Sam Harris put one through the infield to put runners on the corners for catcher Andrew Yu. The senior laid down a picturesque bunt towards the first-base line, and Albright dove headfirst to score the first run of the game.
The Blue Devils were far from done in the fifth, however.
A walk to Clark finally pushed Cornell starting pitcher Chris Ellison out of the game, but the Big Red’s pitching change did little to slow down the Blue Devils’ newfound momentum. Rounds found a barrel on a 3-1 pitch from Huxley Holcombe for a two-RBI single, and a slow grounder off the end of Miller’s bat gave Clark enough time to get under the glove of catcher Mark Quatrani to score Duke’s fourth run.
Some confusion helped the Blue Devils register runs five and six, as Gracia’s single to right gave Miller enough time to make it to third. Cornell shortstop Kevin Hager cut off the throw from the outfield in an attempt to pick off Gracia streaking for second and caught the sophomore in a pickle. While the Big Red were chasing down Gracia between first and second, Miller broke for home, forced a throw to the plate and avoided the tag.
Three more runs came home thanks to Albright’s second hit of the inning and a single from Kyle Johnson before Cornell finally made it back into their dugout — now trailing 9-0.
“I've been really proud of Albright and his start to the season,” Pollard said. “He's grown a lot as a competitor, and is learning each day how to better put himself in a mindset where he doesn't press.”
Then in the seventh, a trio of walks loaded the bases for Johnson to clear them. The sophomore’s first collegiate grand slam brought his totals on the season to three homers and 10 RBIs.
Cornell finally got on the board against Aidan Weaver in the eighth, but its lone run only changed a 13-run lead into a 12-run advantage for the home team. The lead ballooned back to 17 in the eighth via triples from freshman Adam Troch and Jay Slater, and the Big Red seemed to run out of options on the mound.
In the final two games of the series, Duke outscored Cornell 34-3, providing the team with some confidence after a shaky start to the year. The Blue Devils will hit the road for the first time in 2025 in a bout against Campbell Tuesday. - Fenoglio
Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.