A roller-coaster for Duke baseball Tuesday night, down, then up and finally down in the ACC Tournament.
Duke spotted NC State a 7-1 lead, fought back to send the game into extra innings, only to fall 8-7 in 11 innings.
The loss eliminates Duke from any chance of advancing to the semifinals Saturday and puts an end to any chance Duke has to host NCAA Tournament play next weekend.
And it was a tough loss to swallow, lots of stranded base-runners, key starters on the bench with the game on the line and a some big calls going against Duke.
It took State two batters to jump on top, when third baseman LuJames Groover III launched an Aidan Weaver pitch over the left-field wall with a runner on. Following a State single, Duke replaced Weaver with Adam Boucher.
Duke took advantage of a two-out throwing error by State shortstop Kalae Harrison in the bottom of the first. Alex Stone doubled in Jay Beshears, extending his hitting streak to 29 games.
Stone ended the game 4-5.
It was 2-1 after an inning.
Whatever momentum Duke had vanished in the top of the second. The Wolfpack drove Boucher from the mound. Freshman Owen Proksch stopped the bleeding at 4-1.
Duke was swinging the bats but promising fly balls kept dying on the warning track, three in the first two innings.
State added three runs in the top of the third.
“NC State came out and kind of punched us in the mouth early,” Chris Pollard said. “Really impressed by their offense. We got on our heels a little bit through those first three innings. Free bases on walks and some errors and that led to those innings getting away from is a little bit.”
Duke countered with two in the bottom of the fourth--Tyler Albright driving in both with a single.
“I thought we competed like crazy,” Pollard added, complimenting bullpen arms Jason White, Charlie Beilinson and Fran Oschell for holding State down and giving Duke’s offense a chance to fight back.
In fact, Duke held State without a hit for 6.2 innings after that early onslaught.
Albright singled in another run in the sixth.
Duke closed to 7-5 in the seventh, again the beneficiary of a two-out error. Alex Stone singled in the fifth run but M.J. Metz flied out to right field with two on and two outs.
Devin Obee just missed a tying home run in the eighth, just foul down the left field line, a lengthy review not changing the original call of four. Obee then struck out and Andrew Fischer struck out looking with the bases loaded to end another Duke threat.
Duke left 12 runners on base.
The Blue Devils finally got even in the ninth, M.J. Metz launching a homer over the right field fence.
Free baseball, with momentum on Duke’s side.
Alex Mooney just missed a walk-off to lead of the bottom of the 10th, a drive to the warning track in straight-away center.
Later in the inning Duke had a runner on second with two outs, with Stone’s spot up. But Duke had pulled him for a pinch runner earlier and replacement Andrew Wu struck out.
Oschell went four scoreless innings and Duke went with Jimmy Romano in the eleventh; he was Duke’s eighth pitcher. Noah Soles singled with one out and then stole second, a bang-bang play that resulted in another lengthy review that upheld the original call.
Soles went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Cannon Peebles.
Aaron Beasley came in and put out the fire.
Why not ace closer James Tallon? Pollard said that Tallon needed one more day to recover from pitching twice in Miami last week.
Blame the schedule maker
Duke went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning.
Pollard said that Duke entered May tight but added that he thinks they’ve turned the corner.
“There’s a confidence about this team. We’ve done it so many times. There was a quiet confidence there. What I told out guys is we want to use the momentum from the second half of this game, carry that into Friday and I thought we did a really good job of getting back into our competitive identity the second half of the game today and carry that into Friday and let us get that where we want to be going into the NCAA Tournament.”
Duke plays Miami Friday afternoon. Pollard said Duke would start Alex Gow and try to set up the rotation for the NCAAs. Tallon should be available.
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