Duke baseball edges Rider, 2-1, moves on to NCAA Tournament’s Conway regional final
A day after winning an NCAA Tournament game with five home runs, Duke turned to small ball to advance past Rider on Saturday night.
Gio DiGiacomo doubled to start the ninth inning and scored after a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly, giving the Blue Devils a 2-1 win over Rider in the Conway Regional at Coastal Carolina’s Springs Brooks Stadium.
“We had to fight until the very last pitch,” Duke coach Pollard said. “But I thought our team was up to the challenge. I thought we were very, very tough.”
Duke (37-21) is the only unbeaten team in the four-team regional and needs just one more win to advance to the third super regional in program history.
Fourth seeded in the regional, Rider (36-20) heads to an elimination game Sunday at noon against Coastal Carolina. The regional’s top seed and host team, the Chanticleers (40-20) survived an elimination game Saturday by pounding UNC Wilmington, 12-2.
The winner of Sunday’s noon game stays alive and will play second-seeded Duke Sunday night at 6 p.m. A Duke win gives it the regional title and a place in next week’s super regional. A Duke loss means a Monday rematch to decide the Conway Regional champion.
DiGiacomo started the game-winning rally in the ninth with a double before moving to third base on Tyler Albright’s sacrifice bunt. After Rider intentionally walked Luke Storm, Damon Lux lifted a fly ball to center field that allowed the speedy DiGiacomo to tag and score the go-ahead run.
“Since there was a runner at third and one out, I really was just trying to get something far enough into the outfield where he could tag up,” said Lux, who bats ninth in Duke’s batting order. “And since Gio DiGiacomo was on third, that wasn’t gonna be too difficult.”
Fran Oschell (5-0), Duke’s fifth pitcher of the game, issued two walks to put a pair of Rider runners on with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. After a groundout put the tying run at third base and the winning run at second, Oschell struck out Jordan Erbe to clinch the win.
Though no one threw more than two innings, Duke’s pitchers limited Rider to just four hits, three of them singles. The Broncs were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
“We just didn’t get the hits when we had opportunities,” Rider coach Barry Davis said. “It’s hard to get two-out hits, but you’ve got to do that this time of year.”
Jay Beshears put Duke on top with a two-out, solo home run in the top of the first inning before Rider starting pitcher Brian Young started putting up zeros.
Duke’s whole staff approach to its pitching protected that lead through the first five innings. Andrew Healy started and threw to scoreless innings. Owen Proksch took over in the third and allowed a lead-off double. But he retired the next Rider batters in a row to keep the score 1-0.
Adam Boucher pitched a perfect fifth inning, giving the Blue Devils staff nine consecutive batters retired.
But Rider tied the game in the sixth inning with help from Duke. Relief pitcher Charlie Beilenson issued a lead-off walk before a passed ball allowed Rider’s Scott Shaw to take second base.
Following Brian Sketini’s bloop single to left-center, Luke Lesch drove in Shaw with a sacrifice fly to left to tie the game at 1-1.
Duke loaded the bases with one out in the seventh inning, finally chasing Young from the game in the process. But Rider relief pitcher Christian Aiello struck out Alex Mooney before another reliever, Will Gallagher, fanned Andrew Fischer to keep the scored tied at 1.
A left-hander, Young pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing four hits and one run while striking out five.
Beilenson and Oschell kept Rider off the board in the seventh and eighth innings, allowing DiGiacomo to get the rally going that delivered the win for Duke.
This story was originally published June 3, 2023 at 8:54 PM.