ACC Baseball News & Notes: Duke's the new Coastal Leader

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As the final month of the ACC baseball season begins, a new name is on top in the Coastal Division. The Duke Blue Devils (27-12, 12-8) have a one-game lead on Virginia (32-9, 12-9) in the division. This comes on the heels of the Blue Devils’ sweep of Louisville last weekend at home. Duke was not the only team that was able to sweep their league series last weekend. Boston College, Clemson, and Notre Dame did the same. The final month is going to be a wild ride, so let’s take a look at how we got here.

Boston College (27-12, 12-9) made the trip to Chapel Hill, trying to do something that has very rarely been done. The Eagles were 0-17 all-time on the road vs North Carolina and 3-31 combined vs the Tar Heels (25-15, 9-10). All of that changed last weekend as the Eagles swept the Tar Heels at home. In doing so, they have moved into second place in the Atlantic five games back of first place Wake Forest. BC took game one in ten innings 9-8, as Sam McNulty came into the game late to play SS. He came through with a 2-run RBI single to left field to give the Eagles a 9-7 lead. Julian Tonghini picked up his second save of the year in the bottom of the 10th despite making things interesting by giving up a run in the tenth. On Saturday night, BC was down 2-1 late, then the bats took over. They scored four runs in both the eighth and ninth innings to get the win. LF Cameron Leary’s grand slam HR in the eighth was the blow that gave the Eagles the series. On Sunday, BC completed the sweep by a 6-2 score. RF Travis Honeyman went 2-for-5 with a double and home run. He drove in one and scored twice. Boston College is now ranked 11th by D-1 and #12 by Perfect Game.

The Eagles’ next opponent, the Clemson Tigers (22-16, 9-9) was able to do the same thing. They took three games from the North Carolina State Wolfpack (25-14, 8-12). The series sweep by the Tigers was the first since 2010. It was the first on the road since 2009. The Tigers are getting hot at the right time. They have won eight of their last 10 games and seven of nine in league play. The Tigers’ bats were on display over the weekend as they scored 27 runs in the three-game set. Game one saw DH Billy Amick have a big day for Clemson. He went 4-for-5 with five RBI and two runs scored. He hit two HRs, a three-run shot in the first, then a solo home run in the seventh. Ethan Darden went eight innings to get the win (3-2) as he allowed eight hits and one earned run. On Saturday, the Tigers were down 6-5 in the eighth. They would turn that around with one swing of the bat by 1B Caden Grice whose grand slam HR to right field off of Sam Highifill would be the difference in a 9-7 win. Sunday afternoon, a 5-run third did the trick for the Tigers. Grice picked up the win on the mound with six innings of five-hit, five-run, four-earned baseball. He struck out eight to improve to 3-1. Tristan Smith pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save of the year. The Tigers, who are 6-3 on the road in league play, will try to keep things going vs a BC team that is 5-5 at home in conference play.

Notre Dame (23-15, 10-10) has struggled with their offense all season long and broke out of it last weekend against Virginia. They scored 25 runs in the three-game series. On Friday, the Irish used the long ball to win 10-7. A solo HR by Estevan Moreno was followed by a 2-run bomb off the bat of Brady Gumpf. It made a winner of Aidan Tyrell (7-1) who went six and gave up seven hits and five earned runs. Radek Birkholtz went three to get save number one. On Saturday, the Irish hit four more HRs to take a 10-2 win over Virginia. Blake Hely went 7.1 IP, giving up six hits, and two earned runs with eight strikeouts. He is now 2-1. On Sunday, the Irish erased a 4-2 deficit with a 3-run fifth. A rare steal of home by Moreno got things started. Catcher Vinny Martinez (2-for-3, 2 RBI, RS) doubled to left center to give the Irish the lead at 5-4. Cader Spivey came out of the Irish bullpen to throw 4.1 innings of two-hit, zero-run ball getting eight flyouts and four ground ball outs to win his second of the year against no losses.

Duke used late-inning magic to sweep Louisville. Walk-off wins in the first two games of the series were big. On Friday, down 9-6 in the bottom of the ninth, SS Alex Mooney (2-for-5, 4 RBI, 2 RS) hit a walk-off grand slam HR to straightaway center field off of Louisville pitcher Tate Kuehner (2-1) to give his team a 10-9 win. Charlie Beilenson, the 6th pitcher, got the win with a scoreless ninth. He is 3-1. The next night the Blue Devils did it again. A tie game at 6-6 to the bottom of the ninth was untied by catcher Alan Stone singled to right and scored Mooney with the game-winning run in a 7-6 win. Duke would win their third straight one-run game on Sunday by scoring three in the eight to get the 4-3 win. Mooney and Stone would come through with run-scoring singles. The sweep would get the Blue Devils ranked in every poll in college baseball. They would back up the ranking by going on the road and beating #9 Campbell on Tuesday night 4-2.

The ACC Player of the Week does not come from any of the teams that swept last weekend. Instead, Wake Forest sophomore first baseman Nick Kurtz gets the nod. He hit .583 (7-for-12, 3 HR, 13 RBI, and eight runs scored). He slugged 1.417 and had a .762 on-base. His week was highlighted by a nine-RBI day vs Pittsburgh. He went 4-for-5 with a three-run HR, two-run double, and two 2-run singles. He becomes the first WF player since 2019 to have nine or more RBI in a game.

The ACC Pitcher of the Week is Virginia Tech sophomore right-hander Drue Hackenberg. He threw the second complete game in the league this season on Saturday vs Florida State. He struck out 12 and did not allow a base on balls. He ran into a little trouble in the ninth but stranded the potential winning run in scoring position. He became the first Hokie hurler to throw a complete game since 2019.

Next week we’ll be back with more from the ACC.