Tag: Devin Obee

Duke baseball takes first road series against Virginia Tech in six years after three dramatic games

The Blue Devils trailed Virginia Tech by three runs in the series-deciding Sunday game after six innings but roared back to win the weekend.

Duke baseball has finally won a series in Blacksburg.

For the first time in six years, the Blue Devils won at least two games on the road against Virginia Tech. They made sure to do so in the most dramatic way possible, too.

Both of the first two games took extra innings. The Blue Devils lept out to a 5-2 lead by the middle of the fifth inning on Friday thanks to a litany of hits and a solo shot by second baseman Zac Morris.

Duke ace Jonathan Santucci exited the game after a single and back-to-back walks to start the fifth inning, however, and the Hokies smelled blood in the water. Owen Proksch took over on the mound and struck out his first batter, but he walked his second to plate the first run. The next two Virginia Tech hits drove home three more runs, including a 2-RBI single from centerfielder Ben Watson to knot the game.

Hokies catcher Henry Cooke mashed a two-run homer in the sixth to pull ahead 8-6, and Duke seemed destined to let a four-run lead slip away. Instead, however, Logan Bravo and Ben Miller each tanked a solo home run in the eighth and ninth inning, respectively, to force extra innings.

Miller got the last laugh in the top of the 11th, too, with an RBI single to left field that produced the winning run. Duke took game one 9-8.

The Saturday sequel offered a lot fewer offensive fireworks. Miller picked up where he left off with an RBI double in the third, his third RBI of the weekend, and Cooke squared the game with a sacrifice fly in the next inning.

No other runs came across in regulation.

In the bottom of the 11th, with the game tied at 1-1, Bravo lived through every player’s nightmare. With two outs, the Hokies’ Christian Martin grounded the ball harmlessly to Duke shortstop Wallace Clark. Clark scooped it up and fired the ball to Bravo, and it smacked into the first baseman’s glove just in time for the out.

And then it popped out.

Bravo stared at the ball in disbelief as David McCann, who had been on third base, walked across for the winning run.

Bravo got his redemption on Sunday, however. The Hokies took a commanding lead after a five-run third inning, and Duke trailed by three runs in the deciding game. The first baseman took down the Saturday demons with a three-run shot to left-center in the bottom of the seventh, pulling Duke into a tie game.

After centerfielder Devin Obee robbed a potential Hokies home run in the bottom of the eighth, Duke mashed two home runs in the top of the ninth to cement the comeback. AJ Gracia sent his second of the day over the wall before Obee added an exclamation point to his heroism.

As a team, the Blue Devils hit 10 home runs between Friday and Sunday’s victories.

Duke, now 28-11 for the year and 12-8 against ACC opponents, takes on Campbell on Tuesday before a three-game home series against Florida State.

WATCH: Duke’s Devin Obee robs Virginia Tech’s potential go-ahead home run in the eighth

The Hokies looked like they struck a winning blow in the bottom of the eighth, but Duke centerfielder Devin Obee scaled the wall to keep it tied.

Duke’s Logan Bravo already etched his own hero moment with a game-tying three-run homer against Virginia Tech on Sunday, but the Blue Devils weren’t done wearing their capes.

In the bottom of the eighth, with the game tied at 10 runs apiece, the Hokies’ Carson DeMartini smashed a ball to straightaway center field. With a runner already on first base, it seemed like Virginia Tech found the blow that could end the three-game series.

Duke centerfielder Devin Obee had other ideas, however.

The junior raced all the way back to the warning track, lept into the air, and snatched the ball before it had a chance to disappear over the wall. In an instant, the Blue Devils went from potentially down two to needing one more out to escape the inning.

Escape the inning, they did, as Duke snagged the third and final out of the eighth inning before any other runs crossed the plate.

The Blue Devils eventually won the game, 13-10, to clinch their first series in Blacksburg in six years.

Duke baseball completes Northwestern sweep behind late offensive surge

The Blue Devils scored 14 runs in the fifth and sixth innings en route to a 20-run win over the Wildcats on Sunday.

The Duke Blue Devils remained undefeated for the 2024 season with a Sunday win over Northwestern, a dominant 20-9 offensive display powered by 14 runs between the fifth and sixth innings.

Freshman Kyle Johnson continued a remarkable freshman season with three scoreless innings on the mound. The Wildcats took an early lead with a two-run shot in the bottom of the first, and Duke clung to a 4-3 lead when Johnson took over on the mound.

The first-year prospect struck out the first two batters he faced and surrendered just one hit in his three innings on the hill. He ended the afternoon with five strikeouts despite facing just 10 batters, and the Virginia native has yet to give up an earned run in eight innings pitched.

The sterling outing on the mound came just one day after he notched his first RBI of the season, a triple into the right-field corner against Northwestern yesterday. He’s batting .286 with two extra-base hits through Duke’s first seven games of the year.

Johnson halting the Northwestern charge gave Duke’s offense enough time to wake up, and wake up it did. The Blue Devils scored four runs in the bottom of the second, three of them on a bases-loaded single from Ben Miller compounded by a fielding error.  In the following inning, freshman designated hitter Macon Winslow launched his first collegiate home run to left-center to increase the lead to three runs.

Duke really broke the game open in the fifth. A single and two walks in the first three at-bats gave the Blue Devils loaded bases with no outs, a situation nearly impossible to escape from given Duke’s offensive form of late.

A walk on Wallace Clark provided the inning’s first run before Zac Morris singled two more home. Catcher Alex Stone then whacked one out of the ballpark for three more runs, and the offensive track meet was on.

Centerfielder Devin Obee did his share of damage in the fifth and sixth innings, too. He stepped to the plate with two outs and reeled in Duke’s last two runs of the fifth with a two-run double. One inning later (because Duke had already batted around the order by then), he laced a single with the bases loaded for his third RBI of the game.

After one last single and a wild pitch, Duke ended the sixth inning with a 20-3 lead, and Northwestern’s hopes of stealing a game in the series had pretty much evaporated. The Wildcats put up an admirable fight, scoring six more runs in the top of the ninth, but the Blue Devils got their third out well before the game got within reach.

Now 7-0 on the young season, Duke takes the home diamond again on Tuesday against Davidson.

Duke overwhelms George Mason in 11-homer, 23-run offensive display

A home run derby broke out in Durham on Saturday as the Blue Devils launched a program-record 11 homers during a 23-5 victory.

You know, most of the team when a baseball team records five runs and seven hits in a game, it probably feels pretty good about itself at the end of the day.

Not so for George Mason on Saturday in Durham.

The No. 14 Blue Devils won their second straight game to start the season in a mammoth 23-5 win over the Patriots as Duke hit a program-record 11 home runs within one game.

The fireworks came early and often for the Duke team. After George Mason scored one run in the top half of the first, recent Harvard transfer Logan Bravo doubled home the first Blue Devils run of the day.

Duke didn’t stop there.

Freshman AJ Gracia, who got the start in right field on Saturday, stepped into the batter’s box still without a collegiate hit after a three-walk debut against Indiana. He made his first hit a memorable one, launching an absolute moonshot to right field for a three-run home run.

In the very next at-bat, centerfielder Devin Obee bounced a line drive off the center field wall and made his way around for an inside-the-park home run. Just three batters after him, shortstop Wallace Clark and second baseman Zac Morris launched back-to-back shots to give Duke an 8-1 lead before the end of the first.

Gracia didn’t slow down after his three-run jack, either. The freshman came to the plate for his second at-bat of the game in the second inning, again with two runners on base. How does one follow up his first collegiate home run, you may ask? With his second collegiate home run.

If you’re gonna do something twice, however, you might as well do it a third time just for good measure. In the bottom of the seventh, Gracia again pounded a ball over the fence, this time to right-center field with, you guessed it, two runners on base.

Gracia finished his second collegiate game with four hits, three home runs, and nine RBIs.

Obee also decided that an inside-the-park home run wasn’t quite the same as the firepower his teammates were showing off, so he decided to hit another home run in the sixth inning, this time the old-fashioned way by powering a ball over the left-field fence.

The Patriots kept adding runs wherever they could, scoring two more in the top of the third and another in the top of the seventh, but Duke had 13 runs by the end of the third inning.

Not to be outdone by his classmate Gracia, freshman Kyle Johnson tossed three scoreless innings from the fourth through the sixth in his first appearance on the mound in Durham.

The Blue Devils kept the fireworks show going in the seventh inning when third baseman Ben Miller fired an opposite-field bomb for Duke’s eighth home run of the game, a new program record. Gracia’s third homer followed, as did Morris’s second to give the Blue Devils 10 home runs in the first seven innings.

Freshman Chase Krewson joined in on his classmates’ fun right at the buzzer, knocking a ball over the right-field fence into the parking lot for the 11th and final home run of the day.

The offensive explosion added up to a 23-5 victory for Duke and a second straight win to open the season. The Blue Devils end their opening weekend on Sunday against No. 18 Coastal Carolina at 3:00 p.m. ET.