Duke softball takes first game against UNC for 100th conference win

The Blue Devils took game one from the Tar Heels on Friday for their 31st win of the season and their 100th conference win in program history.

Duke softball accomplished three major things on Friday night.

First and foremost, the Blue Devils beat North Carolina. No matter the sport, a victory over the Tar Heels always satisfies. Duke took down UNC for a 6-4 series-opening win at Duke Softball Stadium.

The victory also gave Duke its sixth win in a row, its 31st of the season, and its 100th all-time conference win in program history.

The Blue Devils entered the game with all the momentum after a sweep of Virginia Tech, previously unbeaten in conference play, last weekend.

Duke picked up where it left off in the circle with star senior Jala Wright opening the game with four scoreless frames, striking out five batters over that frame.

UNC didn’t go down without fights. The Tar Heels got a runner to third base in each of the first three innings, but Wright struck out the final batter in the first and third and forced a harmless groundout in the second to keep her slate clean.

The Blue Devils offense took a second to get going, but Duke got off the ground in the bottom of the third. After a single and a walk in the first two at-bats of the inning, second baseman Aminah Vega singled home the first run of the game.

Vega got the opening RBI fresh off of her NCAA Player of the Week honors when she brought home nine runs in three games against the Hokies.

Two batters later, Kelly Torres singled home two more runs to give the Blue Devils some breathing room.

The Tar Heels finally got a hold on Wright in the fifth inning when their first two batters walked and singled, putting runners on the corners. A sacrifice fly and a wild pitch drove home two runs, but the Duke pitcher steadied herself to retire the last two batters of the frame.

Wright finished the game with seven strikeouts, six hits, and two earned runs in 5.2 innings en route to her 12th win of the year. She set a personal mark, too, with her 350th career strikeout to record the first out of the sixth inning.

The Blue Devils answered quickly on the offensive end, too. With the lead now one, Francesca Frelick strode to the plate with nobody aboard and two outs and promptly did this.

The towering no-doubter pushed the lead back to two, but senior star Claire Davidson decided that she wanted a little more insurance in the following inning.

The two-run bomb was Davidson’s 11th home run of the season, three more than any other player on the team, and gave her a team-leading 42 RBIs on the season.

The Blue Devils coasted from there, allowing two runs in the top of the seventh when UNC needed at least four to extend the game.

The second game of the series starts at 1 p.m. on Saturday.