Duke ran its winning streak to six games before it ended this past weekend, but the Blue Devils’ baseball team won the rubber match of a three-game series against N.C. State.
Duke (19-10, 7-5 ACC) has won seven of its last eight games. That comes on the heels of a three-game sweep at Stanford a few weeks ago.
That puts the Blue Devils in a tie for third in the ACC standings, albeit before we’ve hit the halfway point on the league’s 30-game schedule. Clemson has only played three series and is 6-3, Georgia Tech is 8-4 in the league, while Duke, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are all at 7-5 in the league.
Here are quick recaps of each game from this past weekend:
Duke 5, N.C. State 1
On Friday, Ben Miller hit solo home runs in the first and fourth innings, which proved to be enough run support for a three-man pitching effort that allowed four hits, five walks and three HBPs — but stranded nine runners.
Owen Proksch (1-0) started and pitched the first five innings, allowing two hits and three walks with six strikeouts. It was only the second career start for the junior lefty.
Reid Easterly pitched the next three innings, allowing one hit and two walks. He only had one strikeout; seven of his nine outs came via groundouts.
Gabe Nard closed things out in the ninth, allowing one run on one hit and a hit batter.
Wallace Clark drove in two runs with a single in the fifth inning, and Jake Hyde’s bunt single in seventh scored Duke’s last insurance run.
N.C. State 14, Duke 6
On Saturday, the Wolfpack scored in each of the last five innings to pull away in what was a one-run game.
Duke’s first five pitchers, of six, gave up runs. Andrew Healy gave up six (five earned) across the first five innings. Mark Hindy gave up two runs in two innings of work; Ryan Calvert was charged with three runs and didn’t record an out; Edward Hart faced one batter and hit him, who later scored; and Ryan Higgins gave up two runs.
Collins Black was the only pitcher to record a scoreless appearance.
Clark and Hyde had two-hit games for the Blue Devils. Clark’s hits were a home run and a double. Ben Rounds drove in two runs.
Duke 16, N.C. State 6 (8 innings)
On Sunday, Duke put up that many runs by only hitting four extra-base hits, all of which were doubles.
The Blue Devils had 14 total hits, along with seven walks and three hit batters. There were a couple of stolen bases, a couple of sacrifice bunts, and a couple of sacrifice flies.
AJ Gracia was 2-for-3 with a team-best four RBI. Hyde had the most hits, going 3-for-5. Kyle Johnson drove in three runs, while Macon Winslow was 2-for-4 with three runs scored and two RBI.
Duke had some inverse run totals going up in the middle of the ...
