After being swept in a three-game series to Florida State, Duke softball showed it was “Tougher Than the Rest” on the road at East Carolina.
Batting their way to a 4-0 lead at the top of the first inning, the 18th-ranked Blue Devils gradually pressed their advantage in the Max R. Joyner Family Stadium. Led by junior Aminah Vega’s 4-for-4 hitting performance — and aided by the Pirates’ defensive errors — the offense clinically exploited East Carolina’s fielders for an 11-0 run-rule victory in five innings out in Greenville, N.C.
“After a tough weekend, I thought that we played a really dominant game,” head coach Marissa Young said. “In the circle, defense was great, and offensively, we had a couple of different kids in the lineup today [whom] I thought really stepped up and took advantage of their opportunities.”
The lineup started with full firepower. With runners on first and second bases and no outs, Junior KK Mathis’ single to the outfield was met with a rushed throw between third and home bases that cost the Pirates two runs. The flub was a harbinger of what would come, as a bunt and a groundout were all it took for Duke (22-12, 4-5 in the ACC) to bring two more runners home. The Blue Devils’ running between bases remained steady, avoiding careless tagouts and force outs. Speeding up as they sprinted around the diamond, no Duke player missed a slide before an attempt to steal second interrupted the nine-person steamroller.
With the second inning underway, it looked like ECU (18-14, 5-4 in the AAC) would put up a fight as the scoreboard refused to budge.
That is, until the Pirates’ slippery mitts and shaky fielding stepped in the way. A defensive error — when a ball heading for the foul line was unceremoniously dropped — only accentuated the trouble ECU found itself in. Senior Ana Gold’s dropped fly — the ball barely touching an outfielder’s glove — allowed the Blue Devils another run.
The infield’s lack of communication only made matters worse, resulting in missed catches and run-outs that Duke capitalized on to steadily build their lead. Freshman Kendall Frost tried various angles against the Blue Devils, but her latitude changes were in vain. Poor infielding continued to hamper the Pirates’ defense, with dropped throws dominating the third inning. Junior Jada Baker’s clean-cut homer in the fourth inning brought the score to 9-0 before ECU temporarily stopped the bleeding again.
Duke made greater use of the porous field in the fifth inning, hitting balls between infielders for doubles and triples and building a formidable 11-0 lead through finding space instead of relying on a leaky bucket of a defense.
Juniors Cassidy Curd and Sophie Garner-MacKinnon helmed the defense from the pitcher’s mound, stonewalling the Pirates from putting the Blue Devils under pressure. With Curd’s fastballs close to the batters’ bodies and her rise balls, a series of strikeouts and fly balls ensued. The following inning, the Port St. Lucie, Fla., native introduced more variations to her calm, clinical tossing. Patiently taking time between pitches and backed by an attentive outfield, she returned to yet more rise balls to deal the coup de grace.
By the beginning of the third inning, Curd had thrown just 34 pitches — far less than the Pirates’ 57. With Duke ahead 7-0, her performance briefly faltered with a missed catch most of the infield rushed to nab, leading to loaded bases. Conceding only three singles and with five strikeouts to her credit, she walked off the mound.
Garner-MacKinnon, now fully warmed up, strode out of the dugout to take over the bottom of the fourth inning. Outfoxing the batters and taking her time between pitches, the junior made quick work of the batting lineup, ending the inning in just five pitches.
“[Curd] coming out strong — five strikeouts in her three innings — started to feel a lot more like herself, and [Garner-MacKinnon] did a great job coming in to close the door,” Young said of her pitchers’ improved performances. Thursday marked the pair’s fourth combined shutout of the season.
Garner-MacKinnon’s fifth inning pitches wore a brilliant disguise, at times travelling far slower than her rapid footwork and aggressive stance. A mix of slow balls in the strike zone and foul balls characterized much of the final minutes of play before two fly balls landed safely in Blue Devil mitts to seal the win.
“Even though we weren't getting the outcome that we wanted each day, we were progressing, learning from our previous mistakes, and evolving, which is what we want,” Young said. “Being able to show resilience and bounce back from the weekend that we had and then dominate the way we did today. We need to carry that into the series this weekend.”
Duke will head to Louisville for a three-game series starting Friday.
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Samanyu Gangappa is a Trinity sophomore and local/national news editor for the news department.