April 4, 2010
ATLANTA – Junior Chase Burnette hit two home runs, and led seven different batters with extra-base hits as the second-ranked Georgia Tech baseball team (25-3, 11-1 ACC) swept Duke (16-12, 3-9 ACC) with a 9-4 win Sunday afternoon Russ Chandler Stadium.
Tech hit four home runs on the day, led by Burnette’s two. The Jackets hit 10 round-trippers on the weekend alone, and hold a conference-leading 63 on the season.
In addition to Burnette, sophomore Matt Skole and junior Thomas Nichols also went deep for Tech.
Burnette was 3-for-4 with three RBI on the day, while hitting his eighth and ninth homers of the season. Junior Derek Dietrich was also 3-for-4, and added an RBI.
“You will have a good series and a bad series, and it just happened to be one of those good series this weekend,” Burnette said. “I was just coming in trying to swing my best and hit the ball hard. It was a good day all-around, a lot of guys had a good day.”
Sophomore Jed Bradley recorded the win on the mound, his fourth of the season. Bradley held Duke to two runs – one earned – and struck out seven in 6.0 innings.
“I thought we had some good at-bats today,” head coach Danny Hall said. “It is always good to get the lead early on a Sunday just to try to set the tone, and I felt like that was important today. Jed [Bradley] was very solid. He maybe didn’t have his best stuff, but I thought he was very solid and pitched out of trouble when he needed to.”
Back-to-back doubles by Jeff Rowland and Dietrich put Tech on board in the first inning. Cole Leonida singled Dietrich home for the 2-0 lead later in the inning.
The Jackets pounded Duke right-hander Dennis O’Grady for three doubles and two home runs in the fourth frame, adding five runs to extend the lead to 7-1. Burnette started the scoring in the inning with his two-run deep shot to right field, before Nichols sent his third round-tripper of the season over the wall in right center.
Skole led off the eighth with the solo shot to right field, his second consecutive day with a home run.
Burnette’s second homer of the game came with two outs in the seventh, and extended Tech’s lead to 9-3.
Duke added a run in the eighth with no outs, on a RBI single by Marcus Stroman off of Tech reliever Luke Bard to cut it to 9-4. Jake Davies and Andrew Robinson held Blue Devils hitless in the final 2.0 innings to end the game.
O’Grady (0-2) picked up the loss on the mound for Duke, allowing seven runs on 10 hits in 4.0 innings.
The Jackets return to action Tuesday at 6 p.m., as they host Kennesaw State for midweek action at Russ Chandler Stadium.
