No. 16 Duke Falls to Gardner-Webb Tuesday

Tuesday, May 16

Durham, N.C.

1 PM

Duke University

34-17

Gardner-Webb University

29-22

Gardner-Webb

Duke

No. 16 Duke Falls to Gardner-Webb Tuesday

5/16/2023 4:52:00 PM | Baseball

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DURHAM – Gardner-Webb (29-22) used a five-run seventh inning on Tuesday afternoon at Jack Coombs Field to down No. 16 Duke (34-17), 9-5 in the regular season finale at home. Graduate transfer Charlie Beilenson was pegged with the loss, falling to 4-3 on the season.

Junior Alex Stone continued his impressive hitting streak, extended it out to 25 games this season. It is the longest streak under head coach Chris Pollard.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Freshman Tyler Albright hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Damon Lux from third in the bottom of the second, 1-0.
In the top of the fifth, Gardner-Webb tied the ballgame on a solo home run, 1-1.
Sophomore Alex Mooney hit a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, 2-1.
Gardner-Webb took the lead in the top of the seventh inning, 6-2.
The Runnin' Bulldogs added a run in the top of the eighth, 9-2.
Graduate transfer MJ Metz hit a solo to left field in the bottom of the eighth, 9-3. Freshman Tyler Albright doubled to the gap in left center to score Luke Storm from third, 9-4.
In the bottom of the ninth, Metz grounded out to second base to score Jay Beshears from third, 9-5.

NOTES

Junior Alex Stone extended his hitting streak to 25 games on Tuesday, the longest streak under head coach Chris Pollard.
Sophomore Alex Mooney hit his seventh home run of the season on Tuesday, a solo shot to left field.
Graduate transfer MJ Metz hit a solo home run to left field against Gardner-Webb, his 12th of the season.
The Blue Devils have now hit 87 home runs on the year, good enough for second all-time in a single season. The mark is three away from tying the program record of 90 home runs, hit by the 1998 squad.
Duke's pitching staff has tallied 563 strikeouts this season, tying the 2022 team for the third most in a single season. The program record was set by the 2019 team, who struck out opponents 598 times.

QUOTES

"Credit to them for moving the ball in some big spots. They didn't swing and miss and a lot of it was soft contact. They weren't banging the ball around the ballpark and some stuff fell in. I think candidly we need to make a better effort to come up with some of those balls, but they fell in and credit them for being tough enough to get it done. We had chances to get off the field and we weren't able to do so." – Head coach Chris Pollard on Gardner-Webb's approach at the plate today.
"I thought some guys took some good swings today. We didn't string them together with runners in scoring position a lot, we'll have to fight to the other side of that. I told our guys you are going to have some funks like this during the season and you don't get to pick when they happen. We are dealing with one right now and it will take us fighting our way to the other side. You have to have some individual guys who say "I am going to be that guy with runners on and an opportunity" to drive in some runs. We can't make that many mistakes on the bases and take ourselves out of the ability to have a big inning down the stretch." – On collecting 15 hits on Tuesday.

UP NEXT

Duke concludes the 2023 regular season on the road in Coral Gables, Fla., this weekend against No. 11 Miami. First pitch on Thursday is set for 7 p.m.

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