Duke softball beats Morgan State in opening regional game

The Blue Devils beat the Bears by five runs after stringing together 13 hits during the Friday opener.

The No. 10 Duke Blue Devils started the NCAA postseason right where they left off.

After winning both the ACC regular-season title and the conference tournament, the Blue Devils defeated Morgan State 6-1 on Friday to advance into the champion’s bracket at the Durham Regional.

In the circle, the Bears had no answers for ACC Pitcher of the Year Jala Wright. The senior held Morgan State to two hits and a walk through her five innings of work, and she forced six straight harmless groundouts from the second inning through the fourth.

Wright ended the afternoon with three strikeouts, two hits, and one walk allowed.

After four scoreless innings to start the game, the Duke bats rallied in the bottom of the fifth to crack the game apart. The Blue Devils hit three home runs in a single inning. Gisele Tapia started the scoring with a solo shot to right before ACC Player of the Year Claire Davidson followed with a two-run shot just two batters later.

Standout sophomore Aminah Vega, the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, knocked a one-run shot herself to cement the four-run advantage.

Lillie Walker entered the game in the sixth inning, relieving Wright, and immediately worked her way into a jam. After an opening out, the Bears rattled off three straight singles to score one run and get two runners aboard.

Instead of letting Morgan State back into the game, however, Walker struck out the next two batters to limit the damage.

Duke tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the sixth to limit the damage, a two-RBI double from Davidson to give her four for the afternoon. They proved unnecessary, however, as Walker blanked Morgan State in the final inning.

The Blue Devils will advance to play South Carolina at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning. The four-team bracket is double-elimination, so the winner between Duke and the Gamecocks will advance to the title series. The loser will face the winner between Utah and Morgan State in an elimination game.