Jonathan Slattery tagged three doubles, scored twice and drove in two RBI to lead William & Mary past Duke 7-4 on Wednesday afternoon at Plumeri Park and end the Blue Devils’ four-game winning streak.
Slattery doubled and scored in his first two at bats and then came through with a two-out, two-strike double in the bottom of the eighth that increased the William & Mary lead to three runs. The Tribe (4-11) finished with five doubles for the game and scored four of their runs with two outs.
After Duke (11-3) scored four runs in the first four innings, starter Brett Goodloe and reliever Reid Killen teamed up to hold Duke scoreless for the remainder of the game. Goodloe (1-0) earned the win, allowing three earned runs over six complete innings, and Killen notched a three-inning save by holding Duke to just one hit and striking out five.
William & Mary’s tying and go-ahead runs came in with the aid of a Duke error on a failed pickoff attempt in the fifth inning that allowed one runner to score from second and another to reach third base. That error was only Duke’s second error in the past five games.
The Tribe totaled 12 hits for the game, a combined six of which came from Slattery and two-hitter Derrick Osteen. Osteen reached base four times and scored twice while playing an errorless shortstop. Five-hitter Tadd Bower also drove in a pair of runs with a first-inning double.
For Duke, freshman third baseman Jordan Betts extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a pair of singles. Betts and fellow freshman Chris Marconcini both had RBI with Betts’ coming on a groundout and Marconcini’s coming on a triple to the right-center field gap. The triple was Marconcini’s ACC-leading fourth of the year and increased his team-leading RBI total to 16.
The runs came early and often for both teams, as Duke and William & Mary traded two-run innings in the opening frame. Marconcini delivered the RBI triple for Duke’s first hit of the game in the first inning, but the Tribe answered right back with three hits, including a two-run double from Bower that tied the game.
Duke reclaimed a one-run lead on a second-inning sacrifice fly from freshman leadoff man Anthony D’Alessandro, but William & Mary quickly re-tied the game in the third on an RBI single from cleanup hitter Ryan Williams.
Duke went on to score an unearned run in the fourth on a sacrifice fly from 2010 ACC Freshman of the Year Marcus Stroman, only to see that 4-3 lead disappear in the fifth inning. William & Mary took advantage of a failed Duke pickoff attempt, scoring the tying run on a throwing error and sending in the go-ahead run on a single from Chris Forsten after Ryan Lindemuth moved to third on the misplay.
The Blue Devils then went to the bullpen for the second time in the game, calling on freshman right-hander Mark Lumpa to relieve freshman lefty Dillon Haviland (0-1) in the sixth. Lumpa stopped the Tribe rally almost immediately, holding William & Mary to just one hit over his next two frames. Junior reliever David Putman then took over in the eighth and was one out away from holding the Tribe scoreless again, but Slattery delivered a two-strike, two-out double to left field that plated two runs and bumped the William & Mary lead to 7-4.
Killen finished off his three-inning save by retiring the side in order in the ninth. He picked up his fourth and fifth strikeouts in that inning to finish with five for the game.
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