Duke Baseball Splits Double Header, Falls to No. 5 Wake Forest in ACC Opener

Saturday, March 11

Durham, N.C.

1 PM

Duke University

10-5, 1-1

Wake Forest

14-2, 1-1

Wake Forest

Duke

Duke Baseball Splits Double Header, Falls to No. 5 Wake Forest in ACC Opener

3/11/2023 8:07:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2 Box Score (PDF) Game One Postgame Notes (PDF) Game One Box Score (PDF) Game Two Postgame Notes (PDF) Game Two Coach Pollard Postgame Interview Photo Gallery Photo Gallery 2

DURHAM – Duke Baseball (10-6, 1-2 ACC) split Saturday's double header with No. 5 Wake Forest (15-2, 2-1 ACC) at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, dropping the opening series of ACC play. The Blue Devils defeated the Demon Deacons in game one, 8-1, before eventually falling short on a ninth-inning rally in game two, 5-3.

The Blue Devils closed out a 16-game home stand on Saturday with a 10-6 record and hit the road for the first time this week at Presbyterian on Wednesday and Clemson next weekend.

HOW IT HAPPENED – GAME 1

Freshman Andrew Fischer opened the scoring for the Blue Devils in game one of the day, hitting a solo home run to right field, 1-0.
Duke added three more in the bottom of the fifth inning, as Devin Obee scored on a wild pitch and on the play score Alex Mooney from first due to an error by the catcher on the throw to third, 3-0. Junior Luke Storm tripled to right center field, before junior Jay Beshears doubled down the line in left to score him from third, 4-0.
Beshears added to the Blue Devils' lead in the seventh, singling to short stop to increase the lead to 5-0. Junior Alex Stone doubled down the line in left to add to the Duke lead, 6-0.
Storm tacked on another run in the bottom of the eighth inning, singling to left field to score MJ Metz from second, 8-0.
Wake Forest cracked the scoreboard in the ninth, but the Blue Devils ended the threat to take game one of the double header.

HOW IT HAPPENED – GAME 2

Wake Forest opened the scoring in the top of the second inning on an error, 1-0.
The Demon Deacons added four more in the top of the third to extend their lead to 5-0.
Sophomore Devin Obee opened the scoring for the Blue Devils in the bottom of the fifth, hitting a two-run home run to right field, 5-2.
Obee drove in his third RBI of the night, singling to shortstop to score Josh Solomon from second and cut the lead to 5-3 in the ninth.

NOTES

Junior Adam Boucher worked three innings of no-hit baseball to begin the first game of the double header on Saturday, striking out five batters.
Freshman Owen Proksch earned his second win of the season in relief on Saturday, working three no-hit innings to follow up Boucher, striking out four.
Sophomore Devin Obee hit his second home run of the weekend in game two of the double header, a two-run shot to right field to cut into the Demon Deacons lead.
Junior Jay Beshears drove in three RBI in game one of the double header, finishing the day 3-for-5 at the plate.
Freshman Andrew Fischer extended his hitting streak to 11 games in game one on Saturday. His streak was later snapped in game two of the double header.

QUOTES

"I thought we pitched terrific. Over the last two games we have played two of the best offenses in in the country. Wake Forest is the number one scoring team in the country and Northeastern was up there coming into the midweek. We pitched great and I am proud of our team. We played eight games in nine days and you could see the fatigue start to set in during game two." – Head coach Chris Pollard on the job the pitching staff did this week with five games.
"I have had teams that playing that much baseball in a short amount of time, would have rolled over and been happy with the split, but our team fought until the very last pitch. I was really impressed and we had the winning run at the plate in the ninth." – On the attitude of this team not giving up when things aren't going their way.

UP NEXT

Duke hits the road for the first time this season, traveling to Greenville, S.C. to take on Presbyterian at Fluor Field, on Wednesday, Mar. 15. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

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