Regional – Syndication Server

Did Duke baseball do enough at the ACC Tournament to host a regional?

Duke outscored its final three ACC Tournament opponents 32-7 en route to its second title in program history, but was it enough for a top-16 seed?

The Duke Blue Devils did all they needed to do this week in Charlotte.

After a 6-7 close to the regular season left Duke outside of the top 16 seeds in most postseason projections, the Blue Devils swept their way through the ACC Tournament for the second title in program history.

Not only did Duke win, but head coach Chris Pollard’s team dominated. The Blue Devils scored 43 runs in four games and outscored its final three opponents 32-7.

Duke’s offense mashed 12 home runs over the four-game postseason run, including eight from the trio of Devin Obee, Ben Miller, and Zac Morris. Obee earned Tournament MVP honors after he hit a home run in each of the last three games.

The Blue Devils dropped down to a No. 2 seed in every projection after the clunky close to the regular season, but five ACC teams were considered safe bets to host a region before the tournament began. Duke emerging from one of the deepest conferences in the nation can’t be taken for granted, especially now that it means the Blue Devils sport a 39-18 record for the season.

The team certainly thinks it did enough, as evidenced by an amusing post from the team account on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Alright, please let us host @NCAABaseball

— Duke Baseball (@DukeBASE) May 26, 2024

The selection show starts at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday with the 16 regional hosts announced.

If fans want the official Duke Wire prediction, I think the Blue Devils did enough to earn one of the spots. Expect them to be one of the last three seeds on the board, somewhere between 14th and 16th in the country, but expect postseason baseball in Durham.

Where are the Duke Blue Devils in D1Baseball’s latest postseason bracket projection?

The Blue Devils seem out of the running of regional hosting duties after a 6-7 close to the season, but who does D1Baseball have them traveling to?

D1Baseball released one last 64-team projection before conference tournaments on Monday, one day before the ACC Championship begins in Charlotte.

After losing seven of its final 13 games, including two in a row at the hands of North Carolina to end the regular season, Duke earned the second Seed in the Greenville Region hosted by East Carolina.

The Blue Devils got the same draw in D1Baseball’s projection last week, however, East Carolina was the 12th overall seed at the time. On Monday, D1Baseball had them as the No. 15 team in the field, the second-lowest-ranked host.

If Duke fans want a reason for optimism, East Carolina was one of the Blue Devils’ six wins over the closing stretch, and Duke even went into Greenville to beat them.

Charleston and Presbyterian rounded out the four-team bracket.

The projections say five ACC teams currently sit in line to host postseason action; North Carolina (No. 4), Clemson (No. 6), Florida State (No. 9), NC State (No. 11), and Virginia (No. 12).

Duke gets one last chance to jump into the top 16 at the ACC tournament this week, beginning with pool play against Virginia Tech on Tuesday and the Wolfpack on Thursday.

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.

Welcome to the home run party, Aminah! 🎉

…we know you've been here plenty of times 😏

Our THIRD home run of the inning makes it 4-0, Blue Devils! pic.twitter.com/hChPRWafzL

— Duke Softball (@DukeSOFTBALL) May 17, 2024

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.

How Pizza Has Changed

Pizza by the slice at Pennington Pizza in Pennington, New Jersey, paired with a regional Stewart’s root beer. Pizza used to be regional. If you were in New York, you just got New York pizza. If you were anywhere else in the country, there was a …

Pizza used to be regional. If you were in New York, you just got New York pizza. If you were anywhere else in the country, there was a different style.

New Jersey pizza can be folded and the oil runs down your arm. It’s sold by the slice, and paired with a Stewart’s root beer or maybe a birch beer. At one time, there was a neighborhood pizza pie place for everyone, run by somebody’s Italian uncle.

New York-style is pretty much the same, until you bring coal-fired into the picture. Some swear by the char.

Midwest pizza is all over the board. There was the cracker-thin crust that places like Ken’s popularized in the 70s. More recently, there are attempts at New York-style pizza, without the Italian uncle. It depends on your part of middle America.

The fun thing about Chicago pizza is arguing about it—all friendly, of course. Deep-dish is what they are known for, but Chicagoans beg to differ about which pizza maker is best. Giordano’s? Nancy’s? Lou Malnati’s? Pizzeria Uno? Do you want cheese in your crust? What’s worth standing in line for…because that’s a likely scenario.

Detroit-style pizza is square or rectangular, and often eaten with a fork. Otherwise it’s closely aligned to Chicago pizza.

California pizza—oh, now there’s a different pizza. Describe California toppings to someone from New Jersey and they won’t believe you are talking about pizza. These pizzas arguably started the trend toward fresh spinach, pineapple, artichokes, roast red pepper, sundried tomatoes, and goat cheese.

All this regionality made pizza distinctive. You knew where you were when you ate it. Times have changed.

Now you go to New Jersey and everyone raves about the wood-fired pizzas, thin crust and all. You go to Chicago and the deep-dish rivalry continues, sure, but they’ve branched out to skinny versions to appeal to the masses.

Pizza, in all its forms, has become ubiquitous. Want deep dish in Alabama? Go to Tortugas in Birmingham. Want Detroit-style on the West Coast? Try Purgatory Pizza in Los Angeles. Want New York-style in Missouri? Try The Big Slice in Springfield.

Understand, this is not a complaint, but rather a commentary on the melding of flavors and tastes that has taken place. As our world gets smaller, our access to the finer things in life—like our choice of pizza—is getting larger.

On a personal note, when I was transplanted from the East Coast to middle America, I missed “real pizza” terribly. What I could find was mostly described as cardboard covered in ketchup. Now, budget notwithstanding, I could use Goldbelly to get Pequod’s or John’s of Bleecker Street or a dozen others. But I don’t even have to do that. Pizza is offered in all its various forms at many local restaurants. It may not be the stuff of memories, but it usually satisfies the craving.

We are an amalgamation of tastes. And now, good or bad, we can access what we want. Without a road trip. Without necessarily packing it in dry ice to mail. Without using your imagination.

When it comes to pizza, it may no longer be regional. But it’s almost always good, in all its permutations. Go grab a slice.

The opinions of the author are just that—opinions. Feel free to nicely express your own.

Oregon Ducks fall to Michigan Wolverines, 8-6, in regional

The Oregon Ducks lost their first game in the Louisville regional, 8-6, to the Michigan Wolverines on Friday.

The Oregon Ducks poor end to the regular season has continued into the first round of the NCAA baseball regionals, as the team fell to the Michigan Wolverines, 8-6, on Friday afternoon.

The loss doesn’t eliminate Oregon from contention, as baseball operates in a double-elimination, round robin style tournament. The Ducks now face Southeast Missouri State in an elimination matchup, with first pitch at 9:00 AM PT on Saturday morning.

Oregon did all their damage in the middle innings, tacking on two runs in the fourth, one in each the fifth and sixth, and two more in the seventh to tie the game at six apiece.

However, Michigan third baseman Matt Frey hit a two-run home run in the top of the eighth inning, giving the Wolverines a two-run lead which they would never relinquish.

Oregon now faces an even tougher path to get through the regional and into a super regional, which would be the second in school history if they are able to advance.

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Ducks softball ends regular season with a road sweep over Cal

Oregon’s four-game sweep over California ends the regular season as now the Ducks await their tourney fate.

Now comes the hard part.

The Oregon Ducks softball team completed a four-game road sweep at California Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over the Bears. With the win, Oregon ended the regular season with a 37-15 overall record and 14-10 in Pac-12 play.

It was announced earlier that Jane Sanders Stadium would be one of 16 possible sites to host a softball regional and it’s now a near certainty with the Ducks’ success this season. The NCAA Softball Selection Show will be televised on ESPN tonight at 6 PST and Oregon will find out who the other three teams will be in the Eugene Regional.

Oregon hasn’t been in the tournament since 2017. That year they advanced all the way to the Women’s College World Series and finished 57-10 overall. It should be noted that the Ducks have never lost a Regional game at home.

Whether or not the Ducks would host a Super Regional is still in question as Oregon is on the bubble in that regard. The Top 8 teams host the Super and currently, the Ducks’ RPI is at 14. So barring a few upsets, Oregon would most likely have to win on the road in order to advance to Oklahoma City.

But the Ducks wouldn’t have been in such a good position to host a Regional if they had not defeated the teams they should beat, such as Cal this weekend.

Brooke Yanez got the weekend off with a good start with the 2-0 victory where she went the distance to earn her 19th win on the season.

Oregon continued its winning ways on Friday by sweeping an afternoon doubleheader with a 4-1 in the opener and a 9-4 win in Game 2. In that 4-1 win, Yanez got the win in relief. It was her last decision and she finished the season with a 20-5 record.

Rachel Cid blew that second game of the doubleheader wide open with a 3-run homer in the sixth inning to give the Ducks an 8-3 lead. Raegan Breedlove came into the circle in relief and threw four scoreless frames to earn the win.

In the series and regular-season finale, all the scoring was over with after the first two innings. Both teams scored one run in the first and Oregon plated two more in the second and that was enough as the Ducks hung on for the 3-1 win.

Samaria Diaz threw three innings of one-hit ball to earn the win and Breedlove pitched a scoreless seventh inning to get her third save on the season.