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DURHAM, N.C. The Virginia baseball team rallied from an early four-run deficit, but Duke came back with a three-run eighth inning to take a 9-8 win over the Cavaliers Friday afternoon at Jack Coombs Field.<?xml:namespace prefix=”o” ns=”urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office”?>
Tyler Cannon (So., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) and Dan Grovatt (Fr., Tabernacle, N.J.) each had three hits for Virginia, while David Adams (Jr., Margate, Fla.), Greg Miclat (Jr., Concord, N.C.), Franco Valdes (So., Miami, Fla.) and Jarrett Parker (Fr., Stafford, Va.) each had two hits. The Cavaliers racked up 15 hits, as the top four in the order (Miclat, Cannon, Adams, Grovatt) combined to go 10-for-15.
Virginia’s Jake Rule (Sr., Waynesboro, Va.) took the loss as he gave up three earned runs, four hits and a walk in the eighth inning. He falls to 0-1 this season. Michael Ness (2-0) earned the win for the Blue Devils, while Alex Hassan picked up his third save.
Virginia reliever Neal Davis (So., Baltimore, Md.) tossed four stellar innings to tie a career high and gave up just two hits and a walk while striking out five. He came on for UVa starter Jacob Thompson (Jr., Danville, Va.), who had a tough start and threw three-plus innings and gave up six earned runs and eight hits both career highs while walking three and striking out three. It marked just the second time in 36 career starts that Thompson lasted fewer than five innings.
Virginia (13-3, 1-3 ACC) took a 2-0 lead in the third inning. The Cavaliers loaded the bases with no outs on consecutive singles by Parker, Miclat and Cannon. Adams and Jeremy Farrell (Jr., Westlake, Ohio) each brought runs home on fielder’s choice groundouts.
Duke (15-2, 2-2) responded by batting around and scoring five times in the third inning. Jeremy Gould hit a run-scoring single to start the scoring and one out later Jake Lemmerman tripled to right to score two and Jonathan Nicolla hit a two-run blast to center to give the Blue Devils a 5-2 lead.
The Blue Devils got back-to-back singles from Hassan and Williams to lead off the fourth to knock Thompson from the game. Davis came on and allowed just a run-scoring groundout by Kyle Kreick as Duke pushed the lead to 6-2.
Adams homered with two out in the fifth inning to draw the Cavaliers to 6-3. In the sixth, UVa scored three times. With two outs, Parker singled to right to bring home Farrell. Miclat then tripled down the right-field line to plate Valdes and Parker and knot the score at six.
The Cavaliers forged ahead in the seventh inning against reliever Michael Ness. Grovatt and Farrell hit back-to-back singles before Phil Gosselin (Fr., West Chester, Pa.) hit into a fielder’s choice. Valdes coaxed a walk to load the bases, and David Coleman (Fr., Richmond, Va.) then grounded into a fielder’s choice to score Farrell and give UVa a 7-6 lead.
Virginia pushed the lead to 8-6 in the eighth inning on an RBI double by Grovatt, but Duke came back with three in the bottom of the inning against Rule with an RBI groundout by Gould and back-to-back, two-out, run-scoring doubles from Kreick and Lemmerman to take the lead, 9-8.
The teams meet in game two of the series at 1 p.m. Saturday. Please note the game time has been moved up an hour from the original start time because of possible inclement weather.