Duke’s defense locked down, and its offense lit up.
The Blue Devils put together a midweek masterclass against North Carolina A&T, trampling the Aggies 13-1 to deliver a fourth-straight home victory. The game displayed budding consistency for a squad that has struggled to combat defensive mishaps and find offensive sparks.
“I don't want to oversimplify it, but I feel like we're rounding into form a little bit,” said head coach Chris Pollard. “Overall, we're just playing a better brand of baseball.”
Junior southpaw Andrew Healy opened the game with a bang, disposing of the Aggies’ first three batters in just seven pitches. From there, Duke wasted no time adding runs to the board. Senior Wallace Clark homered out to right field on the Blue Devils’ first at-bat.
“Clark deserves a lot of credit, because he just keeps getting to first base,” Pollard said. “He gets guys in the stretch, and he gets their attention divided.”
Moments later, graduate Ben Miller stepped up, looking to extend his five-game hit streak. The team’s season-leader in home runs launched a rocket over the left-center fence for two RBIs, and Duke found itself up by three runs before it logged its first out of the game.
The show had only just begun. When North Carolina A&T snagged a run in the third with the help of two wild pitches, Duke responded with eight tallies of its own. A hit by pitch, wild pitch and five walks combined for three scores, while a fly-out to right field and single tacked on another pair. Sophomore AJ Gracia blasted a three-run home run to help the Blue Devils finish the inning with a commanding 11-1 lead.
After Tyler Albright added a jack in the fourth, Ryan Calvert was tasked with maintaining the 12-1 stiffarm. The graduate transfer from UNC Wilmington stepped up to Duke’s mound and eliminated the first three batters he faced in both the fourth and fifth inning. He threw just eighteen pitches and allowed zero hits — bringing his ERA to 2.00 on the season — before heading back to the bullpen.
“Both of those shut-down innings, I thought, were key,” Pollard said.
Calvert wasn’t the only pitcher to have a good night. Seven Blue Devils took to the mound, and only one earned run slipped through. Duke’s bullpen allowed two hits in total, and Healy notched three strikeouts in the opening two innings.
“It was great to see Andrew Healy look like Andrew Healy,” Pollard said. “That's huge for our program. You know, we need him to be the guy that he can be, and I thought he took a really good step in that direction tonight.”
Even the newest Blue Devils found some action at the plate. Andrew Bell, a freshman from Denver, Colo., slammed a bullet over the fence in the seventh inning as a pinch hitter for Clark. His classmate Jeff Lougee followed the 13th run up with a single, though it yielded no scoring.
“Andrew Bell had a great at-bat. He's a really explosive player,” Pollard said. “He has tremendous power, raw power, for his size. So we've got to just keep looking for opportunities to get him on the field, because the more he's out there, the better he's going to get.”
The Blue Devils had notably impressive lead-off batting against the Aggies, hitting 6-for-8 for an impressive .750 average. They also capitalized on each opportunity to get teammates home, going 4-for-4 with runners on third base and less than two outs. That kind of offensive consistency will remain key as the team faces tougher opponents in the conference slate.
Duke now prepares to transition into ACC play, with a weekend series against Cal set to begin at home March 7.
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Abby DiSalvo is a Trinity sophomore and assistant Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.