ATHENS — Georgia had everything set up to advance to its first Super Regional since 2008.
Duke, however, beat the Bulldogs at their own game Monday in a pair of elimination games for the Blue Devils in the Athens Regional at Foley Field.
Duke belted six home runs to Georgia’s one and got clutch pitching from its bullpen in taking 8-5 and 8-4 victories to knock Georgia out of the NCAA baseball tournament.
For the Blue Devils, it’s their first-ever trip to a Super Regional. Until Saturday, they had not won an NCAA tournament game since 1961. They won their final four over the weekend to advance.
Georgia, meanwhile, was both hosting its first regional and trying to make its first Super Regional since advancing to the national championship series in 2008.
Neither would come to fruition.
“It’s extremely disappointing to not be able to move on,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said. “It hurts a lot for the five seniors in that locker room that helped turn this program around. We wanted to do this for them but you have to tip your cap to Duke. They played outstanding baseball all weekend.”
Maybe not the entire weekend. In Duke’s first 15 innings of the regional the Blue Devils scored just one run and trailed Campbell 8-1 midway through their first elimination game.
From the seventh inning of that game until Monday’s clinchers, they tallied an astounding 46 runs over their final 29 innings. Griffin Conine, son of former Major Leaguer Jeff Conine, was 3-for-6 with three home runs in the two elimination games against the Bulldogs and changed how the Bulldogs had to pitch to the Blue Devils lineup.
“They flipped a switch and were hard to slow down after that,” Stricklin said. “Conine got hot on Sunday and we knew he would be tough. He was.”
Duke coach Chris Pollard seemed at a loss for words afterwards.
"Just unbelievable resiliency and character and fight from this group the entire weekend," Pollard said. "Griffin had a tough first couple of days and then turned it around and really led this team offensively over the last couple of days."
It wasn’t just the Blue Devils offense that gave Georgia fits. The Duke pitching staff held a Georgia offense that had scored 24 runs in their first two regional games, with 12 of those coming with two outs in clutch situations, to just nine total runs and just 3-for-11 with RISP in the championship series. The Bulldogs had just one at-bat in the second game with a runner in scoring position.
“Duke made pitches when they had to and we just couldn’t get anything really going,” Stricklin said.
Foley Field, normally a pitcher-friendly park, was every pitcher’s nightmare the entire regional. Foley surrendered 25 home runs in the seven games and yielded a ridiculous 16.7 runs per game average.
“Foley usually does play a lot bigger but with the weather changes and the wind blowing out most of the time it gave up some runs,” Stricklin said. “I was surprised by how small it did seem to play. There’s nothing you can really do to plan for that.”
In the first game, Duke’s bullpen allowed just one run over 7 2/3 innings of relief while the Blue Devils’ offense used a pair of seventh-inning home runs to pull out the win and force the deciding game.
Duke won its third straight game facing elimination and rallied from 4-1 and 5-3 deficits.
Graeme Stinson went 4 2/3 innings yielding just one run while fanning eight and scattering six hits. Jack Lobosky went the final three innings for the Blue Devils throwing up goose eggs to close out the win.
Georgia used a four-run second inning, powered by RBI hits from CJ Smith and Tucker Bradley, to grab a 4-1 lead and led 5-3 after the fourth after a second Bradley RBI single.
Duke chipped away, however, with single runs in the fifth and sixth to tie the game and used a three-run seventh to grab the final lead. Conine homered off reliever Adam Goodman and Kennie Taylor added a two-run blast off Ryan Webb two batters later.
After sending 21 batters to the plate in the first four innings, Georgia managed just two base runners over the final five innings.
In the second game, Georgia starter CJ Smith walked Jimmy Herron to lead off the game but then retired six straight through the second inning with a pair of strikeouts and a diving catch in right by Bradley to end a quick second inning.
Duke starter Mitch Stallings started strong retiring the first five Georgia hitters. Then the two-out magic they saw in their two first games reappeared, though only briefly, for the Bulldogs. Cam Shepherd walked and scored on LJ Talley’s RBI double down the right field line. Talley then was awarded home when the relay throw home bounced into a camera well.
Smith ran into big trouble in the third. Duke’s Chris Crabtree laced a bouncing double past Adam Sasser at first to start and advanced to third on an errant pickoff attempt with one out. After a walk to Herron, Chris Proctor doubled off the center field wall scoring Crabtree and Zack Kone followed with a three-run home run into the left field parking lot for a 4-2 Duke lead. Conine homered over the scoreboard in right center four pitches later for a 5-2 advantage.
That would be all for Smith, who went just 2 1/3 innings giving up five runs on four hits. Tony Locey, who pitched threw 72 pitches in four innings against Campbell on Saturday, took over for the Dogs.
“CJ did not have his stuff today and they were able to put some good swings against him.” Stricklin said.
In the fourth Duke got two runners on after a Crabtree single and Locey plunking Herron. But Locey also struck out the side, getting Proctor swinging to end the inning.
In the bottom of the inning Gainesville native Michael Curry led off with a towering home run to left to trim the Duke lead to 5-3. Talley followed with a two-out triple off the wall in center but was left stranded when Meadows grounded out to end the inning.
Georgia’s Talley put on defensive display at second in the fifth starting a nifty 4-6-3 double play and then robbing Joey Loperfido of a hit with a diving stop and throw to first to end the inning.
Meanwhile, Stallings continued to stymie the Georgia offense retiring six of the next eight after Curry’s blast and stranding a runner at third. Locey kept the Dogs in it into the sixth. But he walked Taylor to lead off the sixth and he was replaced by Zac Kristofak, who intentionally walked Crabtree and then plunked Labosky to load the bases with one out. But Kristofak got Herron to pop to short right and fanned Proctor to get out of the jam.
Curry then led off the bottom of the inning and looked to pull the Dogs a run closer but Conine made a leaping grab at the wall to rob him of a second home run.
Conine dealt the Dogs more damage belting a solo homer, his second of the game and third in the two-game matchup, to push Duke’s lead to 6-3 in the seventh. Kristofak did limit the damage striking out the side.
Pinch-hitter Mitchell Webb singled to center with one to bring up top of the Georgia order. The top three Bulldogs hitters were just 4-for-21 in the two-game series to that point. Webb moved to second on a strikeout of Bradley and then scored on a Schunk single to center. But Keegan McGovern struck out to end the inning.
Georgia brought in Aaron Schunk, the team’s leading closer, to start the eighth to try and give the offense a chance. He sandwiched a pair of flyouts around a strikeout of Crabtree for a quick 1-2-3 inning.
Duke answered bringing in closer Jack Labosky to start the bottom of the eighth. Labosky tossed 35 pitches in first game but got the Dogs quickly to send the game to the ninth with the Blue Devils holding a 6-4 lead.
But Duke got to Schunk in the ninth when Herron homered to lead off the inning. Taylor later drove in Kone, who had doubled, to push to 8-4.
Despite the season coming to an end, Schunk said they will regroup for the 2019 season.
“We want more for next year so that we can experience the other side of this,” he said. “We knew coming into the year we had something special in the locker room so we’re going to keep working hard and keep building the program.”
Stricklin said they accomplished part of what they set out to do coming into the 2018 season. They finished with the second-best record in the Southeastern Conference (18-12) and garnered a top eight national seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“When you get to this spot you obviously want to keep going so it’s disappointing that we weren’t able to do that,” he said “But we were picked fifth in the East so I’m proud of what we did accomplish. These kids believed in themselves and in what we were selling. We’ve turned the corner and now we have to keep building it.
“But we also want to thank the fans that supported us all season. Having them here meant a lot to us.”
http://accesswdun.com/article/2018/6/677821/duke-staves-off-elimination-winner-take-all-regional-showdown-set