Just what the doctor ordered.
Things were not trending in the right direction for the Blue Devils heading into a weekend trip against then-No. 23 Virginia. A nosedive out of the preseason top 25, a 2-4 conference start headlined by a trio of losses to Stanford and multiple midweek missteps all pointed towards disaster in a trip to Davenport Field at Disharoon Park in Charlottesville, Va.
Yet Duke came out Friday night with a sense of urgency, carrying that moxie into a run-rule victory Saturday. The Blue Devils then battled off a comeback attempt Sunday to secure their first sweep on the road in the 118-year history of its series against the Cavaliers.
"The thing I liked was we stayed hungry until the end,” head coach Chris Pollard told GoDuke.com. “I think it would have been easy after winning the series [Saturday] to say, ‘Hey, that is a good weekend,’ but we kept our foot on the gas. I was impressed with our offense and the job they did against their best arms. We were able to piece it together and pick each other up on the mound."
Looking to change his team’s momentum, Pollard turned to junior Owen Proksch to pitch Friday. Making the first start of his career, the southpaw pitched three scoreless innings before giving up three runs in the fourth. While the outing brought his season ERA to 3.14, he did enough to keep Virginia’s bats quiet until the Blue Devils (16-9, 5-4 in the ACC) woke up.
Going against Cavalier ace Jay Woolfolk, the first nine Duke batters went down in order, with six strikeouts. But as soon as the senior made the mistake of walking Wallace Clark and Jake Berger, Ben Miller broke the dam.
“It was a credit to Clark and Berger there in the fourth of grinding out some at-bats,” Pollard said. “That was as good as I have seen Jay Woolfolk pitch now for four years. He has a great arm and has had a great career here. I thought [Friday] he was as good as I have ever seen him.”
The keystone of the Blue Devil offense, Miller blasted a hanging slider for a three-run homer to left-center to open the game’s scoring. From there, it was a barrage of RBIs from Miller, Clark, Tyler Albright and Macon Winslow, as Duke scored two runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Gabe Nard and Reid Easterly did their jobs on the mound, and the defense played fundamentally sound in a 9-5 win.
As impressive the Blue Devils were in the opening game of the series, their momentum snowballed into an avalanche of offense Saturday. This time, Duke only waited until the second inning to get on the board, with Winslow picking up yet another extra-base hit and Noah Murray and AJ Gracia also contributing RBI knocks to give the Blue Devils a 4-0 edge.
The lead stretched to five with a Jake Hyde home run, then nine after Winslow touched them all on a two-run shot. Andrew Healy — in the midst of a five-inning, five-strikeout performance — made sure Duke’s bats did not have any time to cool down in between barrages.
“It was awesome to see Healy throw the baseball like that and feel good. I think every week has been a step in the right direction, and he really came out today and featured what it is that makes him such an elite arm in college baseball,” Pollard said of his junior hurler.
When all was said and done Saturday, seven different Blue Devils had registered a hit — in just seven innings. Mark Hindy got the pseudo-save in the seventh, as he helped Duke hold on to a 13-2 lead to end things early.
Those two wins would be plenty for the Blue Devils to hang their hat on coming out of Charlottesville. But an avalanche is hard to stop, and the Cavaliers (12-10, 3-6 in the ACC) were caught in the midst of it.
Again speeding up the scoring, Duke needed just five batters to register its first run Sunday. An error, walk and infield single loaded the bases for the heart of the order, and despite registering no hits from that point, the Blue Devils still brought two men home. Virginia would not go away quietly, though, and responded with two runs of its own against Henry Zatkowski.
Still, Duke had its freshman’s back, giving him two more runs of insurance in the second, courtesy of a two-RBI double from Miller. The scoreboard kept moving in the Blue Devils’ favor, and the game was nearly out of reach when the Cavaliers came to bat in the fifth. Facing a four-run deficit, the home team rallied for three unanswered runs to secure a breath of momentum for the first time all weekend.
That breath was cut short by a screaming double to right-center off the bat of Clark in the seventh. While his ball did not carry out of the stadium, it was well out of reach of either outfield and gave all three of his teammates on base enough time to score. Another double from Miller kept the train rolling, and RBIs from Albright and Winslow brought the inning’s total to six.
“They had whittled their way back into the ballgame there in the sixth, 6-5 at that point,” Pollard said. “We had a great response against a great arm.”
The road does not get any easier for the Blue Devils, who face the ever-challenging East Carolina in a midweek game before taking on N.C. State at home. But for the first time all season, Duke is trending up.
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Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.