While most Duke students were enjoying their spring break, the Blue Devils had to lock in on the diamond against George Mason.
Duke handled the Patriots in a pair of midweek games, riding six shutout innings from the bullpen to take the first game 6-3 and another key outing from third baseman Ben Miller to replicate that score Wednesday.
“We knew coming out of a three-game ACC weekend where we had a couple of short starts that we were going to have to go deep into our depth,” head coach Chris Pollard said. “And I thought guys really responded over the last two days. Double midweeks are tough any time of year, but when you’re early in the year, when you don't get good starts on the weekend, they're especially tough. I just thought guys stepped up”
Tuesday
While the story of the game was the Blue Devils’ pitching, they did not wait long to get the party started offensively. To open the bottom of the first, George Mason starting pitcher Ty Uchman struggled with command, hitting leadoff batter Wallace Clark before doling out a pair of walks to Jake Berger and Ben Miller.
Sophomore AJ Gracia — who is still looking to replicate the form that saw him break multiple freshman records last season — did the job with a sac fly, and junior Tyler Albright manufactured two more via a single and a caught stealing attempt that gave Miller enough time to make it home.
A 3-0 lead turned into a 5-0 advantage an inning later when Berger took a 3-1 pitch right back where it came from for a two-RBI single. Berger’s 19 RBIs on the season are second only to Miller, as the Ivy League transfer has found a comfortable home in Durham.
George Mason got three runs back in the third, anchored by an Owen Hull homer to left that scored a pair. However, not only was Hull the last Patriot to score of the day, he was the last to touch first base.
First it was Max Stammel, who has a 1.04 ERA to this point in his young Duke career. The freshman from Dallas faced the minimum over two innings, throwing just 25 pitches. That efficiency was one-upped by junior Gabe Nard, another lefty enjoying a strong start to 2025. He combined for 22 pitches over the sixth and seventh, and struck out any batter that got to two strikes.
If Stammel and Nard had surgical precision, graduate Reid Easterly might as well have been performing on an open heart. Six pitches in the eighth set the table for the Yale transfer’s first save of the season, and in the top of the ninth he struck out a pair to end the game in just 2:21.
Albright picked up one more run for Duke in the seventh, scoring Berger with a single, and the Blue Devils’ bats finished with nine hits to just six strikeouts. However, they totaled just two extra-base hits — both off the bat of Macon Winslow — an unusual outing for a team that loves the long ball. Still, Duke’s wire-to-wire win saw a team that looked comfortable and confident.
Wednesday
Wednesday’s early start did not flow at nearly the same pace as Tuesday, but a look at the scoreboard reflected the exact same result: a 6-3 Duke win.
Home runs from Miller, Ben Rounds and Albright and another strong showing from the Blue Devils’ arm barn led the way to a midweek sweep of the Patriots, who put up a stronger fight but could never truly break through.
After a couple of zeroes on the board to start the game, both sides came to life starting in the third.
It was Miller who got Duke its first run, sending a 2-0 pitch to right field that carried over the newly-constructed wall for a solo homer. Then, another mistake from the Patriots — this time a botched pickoff attempt — put Rounds on third for Andrew Yu to drive in via an infield single. A sliding stop by shortstop Owen Clyne prevented Sam Harris from extending the inning further, but the home team still went back into the dugout leading 2-0.
Sophomore Toby Hueber made sure the Blue Devils were not having all the fun with a solo blast to left in the fourth. Clyne followed that up with a triple off the center-field wall, and after Ed Hart came in to relieve Calvert, Andrew Raymo tied the game with a single. The southpaw stopped the bleeding there, however, picking off Raymo and getting a strikeout.
Duke got right back to work to regain the lead, as Kyle Johnson led off with a walk. Once again, it was Miller who came through with a two-out RBI single. His heroics were followed by a bomb off the bat of Albright, which cleared the fence in left-center field with ease.
“[Miller is] such a professional. It's just so even, even early in the year, you know, he wasn't having a lot to show for his at bats,” Pollard said of his star third baseman. “There was no press, there was no panic. It was just a very mature approach, and that allows you to come out of it so much quicker.”
George Mason loaded the bases after three walks, but junior James Tallon entered the game to shut things down. The southpaw had life on his fastball, blowing it by three straight Patriots to get out of the jam.
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From there, it was relatively smooth sailing for the Blue Devils. Each team added one run with solo homers in the eight — Rounds for Duke and Clyne for George Mason. Besides that, the bullpen once again quieted the Patriots’ bats, as the Blue Devils finished with 10 strikeouts.
After the game, Duke caught a flight to sunny California, where the team will spend the back half of the academic break taking on Stanford in an ACC series.
Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.