For the second straight night, the 10th-ranked University of Louisville baseball team experienced a walk-off loss in the ninth inning at Duke, resulting in a 7-6 defeat on Saturday night. This marks the team’s third consecutive loss, leaving Louisville with a 26-12 overall record and 8-9 in the ACC.
Duke (26-12, 11-8 ACC) scored a run in the first inning of the second game of the series, but the Cardinals soon responded. Eddie King Jr. hit a double high off the left-centerfield wall, scoring Haven Mangrum to tie the game in the second inning. JT Benson then put Louisville in the lead with a run-scoring single in the third.
The Blue Devils regained the lead in the fourth inning with a solo home run followed by a three-run homer, putting them ahead with a 5-2 advantage. The Cardinals started chipping away against Duke’s bullpen in the late innings. Patrick Forbes plated a run in the sixth, and a wild pitch scored King in the seventh, making it a one-run game.
Duke scored another run in the seventh, but Louisville tied the game in the eighth with Ryan McCoy’s 480-foot blast, leveling the game at six apiece. The home run was McCoy’s third of the weekend. However, the Cardinals failed to get a runner into scoring position over the final six outs, setting up Duke for a walk-off win in the ninth inning.
The University of Louisville baseball team will look to bounce back as they wrap up the weekend series against Duke on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.