Gelof's Walk-Off Falls Inches Short, Virginia Falls to Duke 5-4 in Game 1

Jake Gelof's would-be walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th fell just short and Duke took game 1 of the Charlottesville Super Regional

Matt Riley/Virginia Athletics

They say baseball is a game of inches. 

It's an often-overused phrase around the sports world, but has no more appropriate usage than to describe the final pitch of Friday's Super Regional game between Virginia and Duke. In the case of the barrel of Jake Gelof's bat making contact with the pitch from James Tallon, less than an inch marked the difference between making the final out of the game and what would have been an incredible walk-off three-run home run. Gelof just barely got under it and his deep fly ball to left field fell about a foot short of the top of the wall and settled into the glove of Tyler Albright, securing the win for the Blue Devils. 

In a highly-entertaining back-and-forth affair, Duke (39-22) scored two runs in the top of the eighth inning to retake the lead and barely held on for a 5-4 win over No. 7 Virginia (48-13) in game 1 of the Charlottesville Super Regional at the NCAA Baseball Tournament on Friday afternoon at Disharoon Park. 

The beginning of the game was a pitchers' duel, with Virginia's Nick Parker throwing just six pitches, all for strikes, in the top of the first and Duke's Andrew Healy picking up two strikeouts to match Parker with a 1-2-3 inning. Both pitchers worked around a baserunner to keep things scoreless in the second inning, but things got interesting in the third. Parker hit Luke Storm with a pitch and then Damon Lux, the nine-hole hitter in Duke's lineup, took a ball deep to left-center field for a two-run home run. In the bottom half of the third, Virginia answered with one run as Colin Tuft drew a walk on four pitches, advanced to third on a perfectly-executed hit-and-run with Griff O'Ferrall poking a single through the right side, and then scored on a fielder's choice grounder by Ethan O'Donnell. 

After a scoreless fourth inning, the Blue Devils pushed their lead back to two runs with a two-out rally. Andrew Fischer hit a line drive to right field and Casey Saucke tried to make a diving catch, but instead let the ball get past him and all the way to the wall, allowing Fischer to leg out a triple. Jay Beshears then rolled a slow grounder to third base and Gelof tried to make a tough play to first base, but his throw was off the mark, bringing Fischer home from third to make it 3-1. 

Duke reliever Owen Proksch pitched a scoreless fourth and fifth inning, but the next pitcher out of the Blue Devil bullpen, Charlie Beilenson, didn't have the same success. Jake Gelof hit a leadoff double and then Kyle Teel hit a ball deep to right field and off the wall for a long RBI single. Ethan Anderson hit a check-swing single to left field and then Casey Saucke got on board with a bunt single to load the bases. Anthony Stephan grounded out to second base to bring home Teel to tie the game and then Henry Godbout hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Anderson to give the Cavaliers their first lead of the game. 

Suddenly pitching with the lead for the first time, Parker retired two more batters in the top of the seventh and then exited the game to a well-deserved standing ovation as he finished with a statline of 6.2 innings, three earned runs on six hits, two walks, and four strikeouts. Evan Blanco entered the game and needed just one pitch to finish the seventh inning.

"Nick Parker gave us another quality start, pitched deep into the ball game," said Virginia head coach Brian O'Connor. "[Duke] had a very good offensive approach against him and he did a nice job managing some innings."

Duke's Fran Oschell III retired the top of Virginia's lineup in order in the bottom of the seventh to keep it a 4-3 game. Needing only six outs to secure the victory, the Cavaliers turned to their closing tandem of Jay Woolfolk and Jake Berry to finish things out. Woolfolk, who threw just one pitch in last week's Charlottesville Regional, faced only three batters, retiring Alex Stone and giving up singles to Jay Beshears and MJ Metz. Brian O'Connor pulled Woolfolk in favor of the 6'10" lefty Berry, who hit Giovanni DiGiacomo with a pitch to load the bases. Tyler Albright hit a blooper into shallow center field and Ethan O'Donnell's diving effort came up just short, allowing the tying run to score from third. Luke Storm followed that up with a clutch single to left field, bringing home DiGiacomo to put Duke back in front 5-4. Berry got out of the inning after that, but the damage was done. 

Kyle Teel hit a leadoff single and stole second to put himself in scoring position with no outs in the bottom of the eighth, but Oschell III bounced back to retire the next three batters to preserve Duke's 5-4 lead. As a team, UVA went just 2 for 13 at the plate with runners in scoring position. 

"Credit Duke's pitching. They pitched out of some jams, some situations. They had a lot of 1-2-3 innings, too," said O'Connor. 

Berry worked around a leadoff single with the help of a 4-6-3 double play to keep it a one-run game in the top of the ninth. Duke went to lefty pitcher James Tallon in the bottom of the ninth and Tallon had no problem retiring Henry Godbout and Colin Tuft to put the Cavaliers down to their final out. Griff O'Ferrall hit an infield single to keep Virginia's hopes alive and then Ethan O'Donnell drew a walk to move O'Ferrall into scoring position. 

Brian O'Connor said in the postgame press conference that the situation was almost scripted, as there was no one the Cavaliers would rather have at the plate in that situation than Jake Gelof with the game on the line. And Gelof came within inches of delivering a legendary walk-off three-run home run. Even some of the Duke players remarked after the game that their throats dropped into their stomachs as soon as Gelof made contact with the ball. Instead, with his back firmly up against the left field wall, Tyler Albright squeezed the ball into his glove to secure Duke's 5-4 win. 

"What a college baseball game - that was a fantastic game. Unfortunately, we came out on the wrong end of it," said Brian O'Connor after the game. "That said, our guys battled the entire game. Right there at the end, had an opportunity with the right guy up. He just missed hitting the ball out of the ballpark. But just really, really proud."

Virginia will look to extend its season and even the Super Regional series with Duke at one game apiece on Saturday at 12pm back at Disharoon Park. UVA is expected to start Connelly Early on the mound, while Duke has named Alex Gow its starter for game 2. 

"We have work to do," O'Connor said. "Our program has been in this position a handful of times. If I recall correctly, four out of the five times we've made it to Omaha, it's taken three games and that's why it's a three-game series. So our guys will put this behind us and be ready to play at 12 o'clock noon tomorrow."

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