Completed Event: Baseball versus Murray State on June 9, 2025 , Loss , 4, to, 5
/
Final
Baseball
4
vs Murray State
5
Sunday, April 27
Durham, N.C.
1 p.m.
Duke University
30-15, 14-10
14
vs
0
Virginia Tech
27-17, 11-13
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
R
H
E
Virginia Tech
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
Duke
1
0
5
1
4
3
X
14
11
2
Duke Run-Rules Virginia Tech Sunday
4/27/2025 5:22:00 PM | Baseball
DURHAM, N.C. – Powered by three home runs and strong starting pitching, Duke baseball (30-15, 14-10 ACC) run-ruled Virginia Tech (27-17, 11-13 ACC), 14-0 on Sunday afternoon to clinch its fifth ACC series victory.
The Blue Devils opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, as Ben Miller punched a sacrifice fly to center field to score Wallace Clark, 1-0. In the bottom of the third inning, Miller hit his 18th home run of the season, before Sam Harris capped off a five-run frame with a grand slam of his own.
Duke continued to pile on the runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Miller laced a double to right center field, scoring AJ Gracia from first, 7-0. Freshman Henry Zatkowski started on the mound for the Blue Devils, working 4.2 innings and allowing the only two hits of the ballgame.
Graduate Mark Hindy entered in the top of the fifth inning, stranding the bases loaded to keep the Hokies off the scoreboard. Hindy worked 1.1 innings and struck out three batters, earning his first victory in a Duke uniform.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Gracia hit a grand slam to center field, his second home run of the series, pushing the scoreline to 11-0, before Duke tacked on three runs in the bottom of the sixth. Graduate Reid Easterly used eight pitches in the final frame to close the ballgame.
HOW IT HAPPENED
NOTES
QUOTES
UP NEXT
For more information on Duke Baseball, follow the Blue Devils on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by searching "DukeBASE".
#GoDuke
The Blue Devils opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, as Ben Miller punched a sacrifice fly to center field to score Wallace Clark, 1-0. In the bottom of the third inning, Miller hit his 18th home run of the season, before Sam Harris capped off a five-run frame with a grand slam of his own.
Duke continued to pile on the runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Miller laced a double to right center field, scoring AJ Gracia from first, 7-0. Freshman Henry Zatkowski started on the mound for the Blue Devils, working 4.2 innings and allowing the only two hits of the ballgame.
Graduate Mark Hindy entered in the top of the fifth inning, stranding the bases loaded to keep the Hokies off the scoreboard. Hindy worked 1.1 innings and struck out three batters, earning his first victory in a Duke uniform.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Gracia hit a grand slam to center field, his second home run of the series, pushing the scoreline to 11-0, before Duke tacked on three runs in the bottom of the sixth. Graduate Reid Easterly used eight pitches in the final frame to close the ballgame.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Duke opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, as Ben Miller hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Wallace Clark, 1-0.
- In the bottom of the third inning, Miller hit a solo home run to left field. Sam Harris hit a grand slam to right field, 6-0.
- The Blue Devils added to their lead in the bottom of the fourth inning, as Miller laced a double to right center field to score AJ Gracia from first, 7-0.
- In the bottom of the fifth inning, Gracia hit a grand slam to center field, 11-0.
- Duke added to the lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, as Clark singled to right center field to score a pair. Gracia singled through the right side to score Andrew Bell, 14-0.
NOTES
- Graduate Ben Miller posted his 18th multi-hit contest of the season, finishing the day 2-for-3 with three RBI. Miller tallied his ACC-leading and team-leading 18th home run of the season. That mark is tied for fourth in a single season, joining Zac Morris (2024), Griffin Conine (2018), and RJ Schreck (2021). His career tally at Duke is now 33, tying him with Gregg Maluchinuk (1995-98).
- Sophomore Sam Harris enjoyed his third multi-hit contest of the season and first three-hit performance. Harris finished the day 3-for-4 with three runs scored and crushed his second grand slam on Sunday.
- Duke is now 50-1 since 2023 when scoring 10-plus runs in a contest and 14-0 in 2025.
- Sophomore AJ Gracia continued to stay hot at the plate, posting a 2-for-4 day against the Hokies. Gracia has now registered a hit in five straight contests and added five RBI on Sunday in Duke's second shutout of the year. For the weekend, Gracia posted a .400 average (6-for-15) with four runs scored, two home runs, one walk-off home run, and nine RBI.
- Sunday's win marked the 30th of the season for the Blue Devils and the 18th time in head coach Chris Pollard's career. The 13th-year skipper has now posted 30-plus wins in 10 of the 12 full seasons at the helm of Duke.
- With nine walks on Sunday afternoon, the Blue Devils have tied the program record for walks in a single season, drawing 304. That mark was set in 1998.
- Graduate Mark Hindy earned his first victory in a Duke uniform on Sunday, working 1.1 innings, including getting Duke out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth. He finished without allowing a hit and striking out three Hokies.
- Freshman Henry Zatkowski worked 4.2 scoreless innings for the Blue Devils to begin the day, allowing the only two hits of the ballgame and registering two strikeouts.
QUOTES
- "I thought it was a great response by our club today. It is tough when you have a big lead and think you are in cruise control, and credit to Virginia Tech, they came out in the middle innings and swung it well against us. We had to go to extra innings again, and you are a little bit depleted, and you need some guys to step up. I thought it was a great step-up performance by Henry Zatkowski. Our offense really got going. We knew if we could string together some grind-it-out at-bats, we could potentially get Eisenreich out of the game a little early. We knew it was going to be a battle of the bullpens today. We had forced them to cash their two best arms out of the pen and knew we had Reid Easterly ready to go today. I thought it was a great job when we got up, continuing to pour it on. I challenged our club today not to play the scoreboard. I thought we did that yesterday, and it came back to get us. Today we kept our foot on the gas and our bench was great all day long, and we didn't give them an inch." – Head coach Chris Pollard on the job of responding on Sunday afternoon.
UP NEXT
- Duke takes the week off for exams, before hosting Radford on Sunday, May 4, for a doubleheader at Jack Coombs Field. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m.
For more information on Duke Baseball, follow the Blue Devils on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by searching "DukeBASE".
#GoDuke
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Hindy, Mark (1-0)
L: Logan Eisenreich (1-1)
Batting:
2B: Ben Watson 1
Base Running:
HBP: Henry Cooke 1
Batting:
2B: Clark, Wallace 1 ; Miller, Ben 1
HR: Gracia, AJ 1 ; Miller, Ben 1 ; Harris, Sam 1
RBI: Clark, Wallace 2 ; Gracia, AJ 5 ; Miller, Ben 3 ; Harris, Sam 4
SF: Miller, Ben 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Clark, Wallace 2 ; Gracia, AJ 2 ; Miller, Ben 1 ; Hyde, Jake 1 ; Albright, Tyler 1 ; Rounds, Ben 1 ; Johnson, Kyle 1 ; Harris, Sam 3 ; Murray, Noah 1 ; Bell, Andrew 1
SB: Rounds, Ben 1
Game Leaders
AB
4
R
3
H
3
RBI
4
AB
4
R
2
H
2
RBI
2
AB
3
R
1
H
2
RBI
3
Players Mentioned
INF
/ BaseballINF
/ Baseball
LHP
/ Baseball1B/OF
/ Baseball
LHP
/ BaseballINF
/ Baseball
INF
/ Baseball
LHP
/ BaseballDuke Baseball - Corey Muscara Opening Press Conference
Friday, June 27
Press Conference: Corey Muscara Introduction
Wednesday, June 25
Press Conference: Durham Super Regional Sunday
Sunday, June 08
Press Conference: Durham Super Regional Saturday
Saturday, June 07
