Duke spring update, part three

Georgia on my mind. Not in a good way.

In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Time for another update in Duke’s dwindling spring sports schedule.

Not a good week for the Devils. But not a disaster either.

But not a good week. Duke went up against Georgia twice and came up empty twice, one expected, one not expected.

The eighth-seeded Duke women’s team played the top-seeded Georgia team in the NCAA quarterfinals last week. The match was held in Waco but it could have been held anywhere on the planet and Duke wouldn’t have won.

That’s not an indictment of Duke. Georgia opened the NCAAs with a 4-0 win over Florida A&M, followed with 4-0 wins over Georgia Tech and California.

Duke was next. The Blue Devils captured the doubles point but any optimism was squashed quickly. Georgia won all four singles points. They followed with 4-0 shutouts of North Carolina and then Texas A&M in the title match.

A&M beat Georgia in last season’s title match.

In other words Duke was the only team to win a single point against Georgia. Maybe Duke was the second-best team in the field. But the gap between Georgia and everyone else was more like a chasm.

Duke’s loss to Georgia on the softball diamond was harder to swallow. Duke was at home, seeded 14^th nationally. Georgia was seeded second, Coastal Carolina third, Howard fourth.

Duke run-ruled Howard 12-0, while Georgia handled Coastal.

It got gnarly in the winner’s bracket. Georgia steamrolled Duke 8-2.

Duke stayed alive against Coastal Carolina. After Coastal tied the game in the bottom of the seventh, Duke scored eight runs in the top of the eighth and won 16-8.

Two teams left. Duke had to beat Georgia twice, Georgia had to beat Duke once.

Duke almost pulled it off. Duke used a six-run sixth the beat the Bulldogs 8-1.

Title match.

Duke star Ana Gold hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first. At this point Duke had scored 18 runs in nine innings. An offensive machine.

An offensive machine that went splat at the wrong time. Zero after zero after zero against Randi Roelling.

Still, it looked like those two runs might hold up. When Cassidy Curd is on, she’s darn near unhittable.

She took a 2-0 lead into the sixth. But Duke doesn’t have a lot of pitching depth, she had thrown a lot of innings and the gas tank hit empty. A run in the sixth made it 2-1, another in the seventh tied it a 2-2. A great throw by centerfielder D’Auna Jennings kept it tied.

Duke went back to Curd in the eighth. I thought it was a questionable decision at the time but it shows something about the confidence--or lack thereof--Marissa Young had in Dani Drogemuller, the only other Duke pitcher to get many innings this season.

The result seemed ordained. Curd gave up two runs without getting an out, Drogemuller gave up another. The final was 5-2 and Duke’s season ended three outs shy of advancing.

A couple of miles away Duke baseball hosted Georgia Tech in the regular-season finale series.

Duke lost the first game 7-6, when they somehow managed to strand the tying run on third with no outs, even on a play when Tech went first to second and back to first on a ground ball.

Duke won the second game but Tech won the rubber match 8-2, Senior Day at Duke, a chance for a double-bye in this week’s ACC Tournament.

Tech ended up getting the top seed in the tournament. The Durham Bulls are hosting again but it’s single elimination.

Duke is seeded seventh and has a single bye. The tournament begins Tuesday but Duke won’t play until Wednesday, when they’ll face the winner of the Pitt-Louisville game at 5 P.M..

Win that and Florida State looms on Friday.

Duke is safely in the NCAA Tournament but on the two-seed/three-seed cusp. A win or two would help solidify a two-seed.

Confession time. I’ve been remiss in ignoring the rowing program. I don’t pretend to be an expert and rowing might be the least spectator-friendly sport around. Even cross-country is set up so you can see the start and the finish, if not much in between.

But I know enough to know that no one works harder, trains harder than these women and I should have acknowledged that earlier.

Duke finished fifth in the ACC championships. Stanford went five-for-five in the finals and earned the ACC’s automatic bid to the NCAAs. The NCAA selection show will be Tuesday but Duke isn’t in line for a bid.

Now for the good news.

The ACC Track and Field championships were held last weekend at Wake Forest.

The Duke women were defending champions but fell to fifth place this go around. Virginia won the title.

But, wait for it. The Duke men finished first for the first time since, well, ever. Seriously. The ACC started holding track and field championships in 1954, early in Eisenhower’s first term, when no one had even heard of Elvis Presley, for crying out loud. And this was Duke’s first men’s team title, indoors or out.

Duke did this with depth across a number of events. Norwegian grad-student Simen Guttormsen won the pole vault and Christian Toro won the hammer throw, the only Duke men to finish first. Joseph Taylor finished second in the 400 meters, third in the 200 meters and helped Duke to a third in the 4x400-meter relay.

The Duke women finished first in the 4x400-meter relay.

The East Regionals will be at North Florida. Duke doesn’t have the depth or top-tier talent to compete nationally. But an ACC championship is always way cool.