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Duke Baseball: Historic Comeback Gives Blue Devils Another Life

By Kevin Connelly

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 29: Detail photo of bats used by the Los Angeles Dodgers during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium on May 29, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 29: Detail photo of bats used by the Los Angeles Dodgers during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium on May 29, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /
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It was a wild ride but Duke Baseball finally got a win in the NCAA Baseball Regional Tournament.

Friday wasn’t pretty, to say the least.

The Blue Devils were up against Troy and they got shut down. Troy steamrolled over Duke 6-0 and the bats were quiet once again for Duke.

It was more of the same in Duke’s elimination game against Campbell on Saturday night.

Campbell jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning and as soon as the Blue Devils cut the lead in half with a run in the third inning, Campbell pushed their lead back to two in the bottom half of the third inning.

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It was all Campbell from there as they pushed four more runs in the fifth inning and one more in the sixth.

It looked like this might have been the end of the Blue Devils historic season, but down 8-1 heading into the top of the seventh, the Duke bats finally woke up.

RBI singles from Jimmy Herron and Chris Proctor cut the Campbell lead to five with still six outs to go for the Blue Devils.

As Duke held Campbell scoreless in the home half of the seventh, the Ble Devils loaded the bases in the top of the eighth and an error by Campbell third baseman Kyle Mehl allowed two runs to score and Duke was now trailing 8-5 entering the ninth.

Duke once again loaded the bases in the ninth and Max Miller stepped up to the plate and knocked in one run with a single. As the Campbell lead was cut to two runs with the bases still loaded Chris Crabtree smoked a bases-clearing double down the right-field line to give the Blue Devils a 9-8 lead, but they weren’t finished yet.

The Blue Devils went onto score seven more runs in the top of the ninth inning en route to a 16-8 victory over Campbell.

The win was the first Duke Baseball NCAA Tournament win in over 57 years. The last time the Blue Devils won an NCAA Tournament game was June 11, 1961, John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States.

Duke will now get a rematch with Troy on Sunday evening as the Georgia Bulldogs took down Troy in the Winners Bracket on Sunday afternoon.

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