Duke Baseball: Bryce Jarvis hurls Blue Devils past West Virginia

The Duke Baseball team advanced to the Regional Championship after a shutout of host West Virginia on Saturday night.

The Duke Blue Devils were facing the No. 15 West Virginia Mountaineers in its home stadium with its record setting crowd and its ace who will be a Top-15 selection in Monday’s MLB Draft.

However, it was Duke’s starting pitcher, Bryce Jarvis, that stole the show in Morgantown on Saturday night.

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Jarvis was completely dominant after throwing eight scoreless innings, totaling 126 pitches, as he scattered six hits, walked just one, and struck out a career high 11 batters.

There were only three real threats West Virginia was able to muster in Duke’s 4-0 victory.

In the first Jarvis allowed a single with two outs and then an error put runners on the corners but he was able to get Paul McIntosh to fly out to right.

In the third inning, the Mountaineers had a runner on first with two outs and on single from Darius Hill, Tyler Doanes overran second base and RJ Schreck was able to fire the ball in and induce a rundown between second and third.

With one out in the sixth, Kennie Taylor misplayed a fly ball in center field, which may have never happened before, and after a passed ball on the third pitch to the next batter, Marques Inman, Jarvis was able to strikeout Inman and McIntosh to strand the runner on third.

The Mountaineers only had two baserunners in the final three innings, coming on a hit in the seventh and a walk in the eighth.

After a shaky performance yesterday afternoon, Thomas Girard was brought in for the ninth inning and sent the Mountaineers down in order to send Duke to the Regional Championship Game.

Offensively, Duke was able to get to No. 11 overall prospect in the MLB Draft, Alex Manoah, in the first inning thanks to a two-out rally.

A double from Matt Mervis led to a RBI triple from Michael Rothenberg as he then came around to score on a wild pitch.

Manoah walked the bases loaded with one out in the third, but seemed to have gotten out of it unscathed after a strikeout and he threw home for a force out on a Erikson Nichols come-backer.

Home-plate umpire Dave Condon called Joey Loperfido out at the plate, but the play was reviewed after an awkward throw home from Manoah, bouncing it to the plate.

West Virginia catcher Ivan Gonzalez fielded the throw, but he had to maneuver his feet off the plate to catch the ball and Loperfido’s foot touched home before Gonzalez could get back on the plate.

Mountaineers head coach Randy Mazey was ejected from the game after arguing the call after the review.

Chris Crabtree kept things going with an RBI single, scoring Mervis, but Rothenberg tried to score from second, was called out, but there would be another review.

The ruling on the field stood and Duke took a 4-0 lead to the fourth inning, which would be all the scoring for the rest of the game.

Alek Manoah only lasted six innings, allowing four runs on four hits, four walks, but did manage to strike out nine.

Duke will not await the winner of the West Virginia vs. Texas A&M game at 12:00pm EST on Sunday as the Aggies were able to beat the Fordham Rams in an elimination game earlier on Saturday.

The Blue Devils will have two chances to advance to its second straight Super Regional, getting back on the field at 6:00pm EST against the Mountaineers or Aggies. If Duke were to lose on Sunday night, the two teams would play in a winner-take-all Game 7 on Monday afternoon.

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