Kyle Johnson powers Duke baseball past Murray State in super regional opener

When Duke baseball needed him, Kyle Johnson stepped up.

With Jack Coombs Field hosting NCAA tournament play for the first time, Johnson replaced suspended outfielder AJ Gracia and powered the Blue Devils past Murray State, 7-4, in Game 1 of the Durham Super Regional.

Duke (41-19) now needs one more win over Murray State (42-15) to make its first College World Series appearance since 1961. The first chance comes in Sunday’s Game 2 at noon.

Johnson hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the third to tie it up, then with the bases loaded, nailed a double to score two runs and clinch Duke’s first lead of the game. He finished the afternoon 4 for 4 with a home run, two doubles, a single and five RBIs.

The sophomore stepped into the bottom lineup in place of Gracia — who usually bats second — as he sits out a one-game suspension stemming from his ejection in Duke’s 3-2 win over Oklahoma State that clinched the Athens Regional last Sunday.

A two-way player from Leesburg, Virginia, who can hit, field and pitch, Johnson filled in Gracia’s gap at center field Saturday. He was taken out of the game in the bottom of the eighth inning after his final base hit because of cramping.

“This is a guy that started out the year in our [pitching] rotation — that started out the year in the lineup — and fell out of both,” Duke head coach Chris Pollard said. Pollard later added that “[Johnson] just never gave up on himself, never gave up on his team, never gave up on this season.”

Johnson was not available at the post-game news conference, as he was receiving treatment in order to be ready to pitch in Sunday’s game. According to Pollard, the sophomore worked his way back into the pitching rotation by the last week of the regular season.

The Racers struck first in the top of the second inning, stringing together a series of base hits to advance Dom Decker to third before a sacrifice fly ran him home.

Duke gave up another run and two hits in the second inning. A single followed by a wild pitch put Murray State’s Johnathan Hogart into scoring position, and Decker brought him home with a base hit of his own. The Blue Devils escaped the inning with two runners stranded.

“I was still making good pitches in those few innings where I did give up runs,” Duke starting pitcher Owen Proksch said. “We know that what they like to do is shorten up, put the ball out of play. [Murray State] is not a team that likes to strike out a lot.”

Then, on a 3-1 count and in his first at-bat of the afternoon, Johnson rocketed a ball over the center-field fence for a two-run homer to tie it, 2-2. The home run marked only his fourth on the season.

Prior to Saturday’s game, Johnson was hitting .170 with nine hits in 53 appearances. His last at-bat was in May against Radford.

“There undoubtedly were moments where [Johnson] was really frustrated, and deservedly so, not just frustrated with himself but frustrated with like, ‘Hey, when are you gonna get me back in there?’” Pollard said. “He really was able to get over that and get to a good place where it was like, ‘Look, I’m just going to keep grinding and stay ready.’”

Shortly after, in the bottom of the fourth inning, Duke loaded the bases off of three walks.

Stepping up to the plate with two outs, Johnson hit a ball deep into left field that bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double, scoring two runs to give Duke its first lead of the game. A wild pitch scored graduate second baseman Jake Berger, and the Blue Devils ended the inning up 5-2.

In the top of the sixth and with two outs, Proksch threw 115 pitches before leaving the game in the top of the sixth with two outs. Mark Hindy took to the mound in his place, quickly recording the final out.

Johnson wasn’t done with his explosive afternoon. In the bottom of the sixth, he hit another deep ball — this time off the center-field fence — to score Winslow and push the Blue Devils further ahead, 6-2. Two batters later, graduate student left fielder Ben Rounds lined an RBI single to right field for a 7-2 Duke lead..

Entering Saturday’s game, Murray State head coach Dan Skirka said he didn’t have much film on Johnson. Still, the Racers planned to pitch to him and make him hit since Johnson was batting from the nine hole.

“That’s college baseball, right?” Skirka said. “Dude comes out of nowhere and gets four big hits, two big plays in center field. If he doesn’t make those, that’s a different game right there.”

Murray State scored two runs in the seventh, but Duke shut down the Racers from there.

This story was originally published June 7, 2025 at 4:40 PM.