No. 17 Duke Falls to Cornell on Friday

Friday, February 21

Durham, N.C.

3 p.m.

Duke University

Cornell

No. 17 Duke Falls to Cornell on Friday

2/21/2025 8:09:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Postgame Notes (PDF)

DURHAM – No. 17 Duke (2-3) fell to Cornell (1-0), 11-8, on Friday afternoon at Jack Coombs Field.

Sophomore Kyle Johnson started on the mound for the Blue Devils, working five innings of three-hit baseball and punching out five batters.

Through the first six innings of action, the Blue Devils were held without a hit before Ben Miller hit a solo home run to left field, breaking the scoreless and hitless drought. Later in the frame, Jake Hyde collected his first hit as a Blue Devil, scorching a ball to right center field, before Sam Harris followed up his at-bat with a double to center field, cutting the Cornell lead in half.

The Blue Devils pulled to within three runs in the bottom of the eighth, when Jake Berger hit is first home run at Duke, a three-run shot to center field, 11-8. In the bottom of the ninth, Duke saw the tying run come to the plate, before grounding into a fielder's choice.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Cornell opened the scoring in the top of the third inning, 1-0.
The Big Red added to their lead in the top of the sixth inning, 4-0.
Cornell added six runs in the top of the seventh inning, 10-0
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Ben Miller hit a solo home to left field. Jake Hyde doubled to right center field before Sam Harris knocked in a pair to push the scoreline to 10-5.
The Big Red added a run in the top of the eighth inning, 11-5.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Jake Berger hit a three-run home run to center field, 11-8.

NOTES

Sophomore Kyle Johnson was pegged with the loss on Friday evening, tossing five innings of three-hit baseball and striking out five batters. Johnson allowed just three runs to cross under his watch.
Four Blue Devils extended their reached base streak on Friday, as Wallace Clark, Jake Berger, AJ Gracia, and Tyler Albright moved to five games.
Graduate Jake Berger finished the day 1-for-2 from the plate, scoring two runs, two walks, and his first home run in a Duke uniform. His three-run shot in the eighth, cut the deficit to three runs, allowing Duke to attempt to rally late.

QUOTES

"We are five games in and have had way more than five games worth of bad luck, and that, combined with the fact that we have made some very uncharacteristic mistakes. I have seen a lot of these guys play for two and three years. I have watched us play for the last six months, and I can tell you we are making some mistakes that we don't normally make. The combination of some bad luck, hitting some balls hard right at people, having some soft contact fall in for hits, and not making some plays that we are used to making has allowed us to get tight. We have to play through that. In the latter part of that game, we showed signs of doing that. The challenge will be, if we find ourselves back in that spot again tomorrow, what is that response? The reality is we should have got off the field in the sixth inning with only one run scoring. We also should have got off the field in the seventh with no runs scoring. If something bad happens in those innings, we have to find a better response so that one run doesn't turn into six runs." – Head coach Chris Pollard on his overall thoughts through the first five games of the season.

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