DURHAM, N.C. -- Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said the games in April will tell what kind of a baseball team Virginia has.
The squad began April in strong fashion this weekend with a three-game sweep of Duke (14-16, 3-6 ACC) in Durham.
Virginia improved to 25-7 on the season and 8-4 in the conference while defeating the Blue Devils, 3-1, in the series finale and 8-1, 6-5 in the first two contests.
In game three, the Cavaliers got on the board first in the top of the third. Senior Matt Street led off the inning with a bunt and made it safely to first on an errant throw from the Duke third baseman. Two batters later, sophomore Ryan Zimmerman clocked an RBI double over the centerfielder's head to plate Street. With two outs sophomore Matt Dunn hit an RBI triple to left center to increase Virginia's lead to 2-0.
The Blue Devils had a chance to getone run back in the bottom of the third when sophomore Javier Socorro tripled to left center, but senior southpaw Joe Koshansky struck out sophomore Adam Murray looking to end the inning. Koshansky tossed 7.2 innings and gave up only one run to record his fifth victory of the year.
Duke "likes to swing the bat early in the count, so I was just trying to change speeds and locations and trying to get them to make soft contact," Koshansky said.
Virginia tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the fourth when Street bunted in catcher Scott Headd.
Duke scored their first runs of the game with a two-out rally in the eighth. Freshman Jonathan Anderson got things started with a line-drive base hit to leftfield. Socorro then just missed a home run over the leftfield fence that instead turned into a double off the wall that scored Anderson. O'Connor didn't want to take any chances and put in freshman closer Casey Lambert, who got the final out of the inning and held the Blue Devils to only one run.
Lambert pitched a scoreless ninth to record his third save of the year. The Virginia defense made a superb play to pick up the second out of the inning. Duke sophomore Mike Miello hit a ground ball up the middle which second baseman Kyle Werman fielded and threw on the run to first. First baseman Josh Darby did a full-extension frontward split to make the catch and get the out. As a whole, the Virginia defense had five 1-2-3 innings.
"We talked to our team Wednesday night about handling the baseball defensively and when we do that we have success," O'Connor said. "We don't have a pitching staff that has a lot of strikeouts, so the other team is going to put the ball in play. We need to make the routine plays and then, like Werman did in the ninth, look to make a spectacular play every now and then."
Junior Greg Burke pitched a complete game for the Devils in a losing effort.
In game one, Virginia starting pitcher Andrew Dobies tossed his second complete game in a row en route to an 8-1 Cavalier triumph. Dobies, who is a perfect 5-0 on the year, allowed eight hits and threw eight strikeouts. Werman was two for four at the plate with two RBIs to lead the Virginia onslaught.
In the second game of the series, Virginia fought for a 6-5 victory in a game which featured five lead changes. The last change came in the top of the eighth with the Cavaliers down 5-3. Virginia got three consecutive singles from Street, junior Mark Reynolds and Zimmerman to open to the inning. Zimmerman's hit knocked in Street, and Darby's single plated Zimmerman. Koshansky scored Virginia's final and game-winning run after a wild pitch.
Part of the reason April is such a critical month for the team is that 11 of their 17 games are road matchups. That makes the sweep of Duke this weekend all the more important.
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