Friday started what head baseball coach Chris Pollard hopes to be a historic season for the Duke Blue Devils baseball team.
No. 12 Duke got their 2024 campaign started as they hope that this year is the year they break down the door and punch their ticket to Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series.
Duke started its campaign with a win over the Indiana Hoosiers of the Big 10. Preseason second-team All-American Jonathan Santucci has been tabbed as the ace of Duke’s staff, so it was only fitting the junior was given the ball in the season’s first game. His first inning was rocky as he allowed a walk and a hit but fought back to strike out three Hoosiers to get out of the gym.
Braden Risedorph started for Indiana and held the Blue Devils in check for four innings before the top of the fifth rolled around, and the Blue Devils scratched across their first run of the season. True freshman Kyle Johnson doubled with two outs and was knocked in on an RBI double from Oklahoma transfer Wallace Clark. Indiana would bring in Ryan Kraft, and he’d close the door on the Blue Devils in the fifth.
Santucci would give Duke one more scoreless inning before his day was over. He threw 86 pitches in his 2024 debut and struck out seven batters while walking two and allowing zero runs on four singles.
Back-to-back home runs by catcher and captain Alex Stone and Harvard transfer Logan Bravo stretched Duke’s lead to 3-0 in the top half of the sixth before Indiana answered with two runs courtesy of shortstop Tyler Cerny, who took Duke reliever Owen Proksch deep.
Duke responded with two more runs at the top of the seventh, thanks again to the combination of Stone and Bravo. Stone hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Wallace Clark. Bravo would come behind him and rip a single down the left-field line to score Zac Morris and make it 5-2 Duke.
Indiana pushed back on Duke again with a home run by center fielder Carter Mathison in the bottom of the seventh against Proksch before Pollard went to his bullpen to call on 2024 stopper-of-the-year nominee Charlie Beilinson to get Duke out of a two-on-and-one-out jam with the game at 5-3. Beilinson would do just that: strike out the two batters to end the Hoosiers’ threat and send the game to the 8th inning.
North Carolina native and sophomore outfielder Tyler Albright hit a hanging breaking ball deep to left field to give Duke a 6-3 lead in the top half of the eighth, and Beilinson would shut the door in the eight and ninth to end his day and secure the win for the Blue Devils.
Logan Bravo led the way with a 3/5 one-home run and two RBIs. Alex Stone had two RBIs as well. In total, Duke amassed ten hits and had zero errors defensively.
The Blue Devils will rest up and prepare for a Saturday matinee affair with the George Mason Patriots tomorrow with lefty Andrew Healy on the bump.