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Duke Baseball: Blue Devils Save Season With Another Comeback

By Kevin Connelly

Omaha, NE - JUNE 27: Coastal Carolina Chanticleers players take batting practice prior to playing the Arizona Wildcats in game one of the College World Series Championship Series on June 27, 2016 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
Omaha, NE - JUNE 27: Coastal Carolina Chanticleers players take batting practice prior to playing the Arizona Wildcats in game one of the College World Series Championship Series on June 27, 2016 at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images) /
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It was another day and another elimination game for the Duke Baseball squad and they got behind once again but were ready for another comeback.

This got ugly early.

Starting pitcher Adam Laskey wasn’t able to get out of the first inning and Duke was in a 4-0 hole after the first.

The Blue Devils would respond in the second inning with a Max Miller RBI single and the hero from last night, Chris Crabtree, would blast a 2-run home run, his first career home run, which would bring the Blue Devils to within one.

Troy would get one back in the bottom of the second with three straight two-out singles to bring their lead to 5-3.

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Duke would take the lead in the top of the third and never look back.

Joey Loperfido‘s RBI single would cut the Troy lead back to one and after Duke loaded the bases Max Miller would pick up another RBI with a hit by pitch.

After another unforced Troy error, Duke would take the lead on a wild pitch.

Jack Labosky hit a sacrifice fly which plated Kennie Taylor and the Blue Devils took a 7-5 lead headed to the bottom of the third.

Drew Fredric hit a solo shot for Troy in the bottom half of the fourth to cut the Duke lead to one, but that was the last run Troy would score on the evening.

An RBI single from Labosky in the fifth gave Duke an 8-6 lead and the Blue Devils were just getting started.

After a Kennie Taylor double, Cris Crabtree stepped up to the plate again and absolutely crushed another two-run shot to give Duke a 10-6 lead.

Chris Proctor then singled in Labosky to extend the Duke lead to 11-6.

After another Kennie Taylor double and a sacrifice bunt by Max Miller, who else but Crabtree gets another RBI by hitting a single up the middle to make it 12-6 Duke.

RBI singles from Jimmy Herron and Chris Proctor gave Duke a 14-6 lead going into the ninth inning and in the ninth a leadoff triple from Griffin Conine and a sacrifice fly from Kennie Taylor gave Duke a 15-6 victory.

Adam Laskey clearly didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but Ethan DeCaster and Bryce Jarvis were outstanding coming out of the Duke bullpen.

DeCaster gave up two runs in 4.1 IP while Jarvis was perfect in his four innings pitched.

The Blue Devils will take on the Georgia Bulldogs tomorrow afternoon in the Regional Final. Georgia is 2-0 in the regional while the Blue Devils are 2-1 meaning, Duke will need to win both games tomorrow to advance to the Super Regionals, while Georgia only needs to win one.

The first game is at 1:00 pm ET and the second game will start at approximately 5:00 pm ET, if necessary. Both games can be seen on the ESPN family of networks.

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