What Duke softball has evolved into is almost unyielding. A program that didn’t even exist at the varsity level until 2017 continues to persist into late May and won’t go away. This usually doesn’t work like that. Decades are needed for programs. customs. a pipeline. Duke had none of that. Marissa Young, a former Big Ten Player of the Year, took over in July 2015, spent two years assembling a roster from the ground up, and then began winning games she had no right to.
It was difficult to ignore how bizarre the timeline is as I watched this Arizona series play out. After falling into the elimination round, the twelfth-seeded Blue Devils defeated Arizona twice on a Sunday afternoon in Tucson, 8-6 in the first game and 9-4 in the winner-take-all. Home runs accounted for twelve of their seventeen runs in both games. Every game has four bombs. That’s not softball finesse. There is no longer an apology from that team for their presence.
D’Auna Jennings had a 6-for-7 record. Seven. She extended her hitting streak to twelve games, hit a home run, and scored six runs. Together, Aminah Vega and Layla Lamar scored nine of the seventeen runs, each going 4-for-7. Additionally, Vega tied Ana Gold’s career home run record of 54, which is set within a program that is still less than ten years old and illustrates how condensed Duke’s history is. Before the ink has completely dried, they are rewriting their own books.
The harder, more subdued work was done by Larissa Jacquez. After pitching four scoreless relief innings in game one, the junior from Eagle Pass, Texas returned to start game two and pitched four more. Two runs, six hits, three strikeouts, and two victories in eight innings. It’s the type of weekend that appears in recruiting pitches a year later but doesn’t make the highlight reels. Jacquez appears at ease inside the standard set by pitchers like Jala Wright, who led the team through 13.2 innings in the Durham Regional the year before.
Observing these games gives the impression that Duke is no longer the rising star. In the past five years, they have attended four Super Regionals. It’s not a Cinderella run. There is a pattern there. In college softball, where Oklahoma, Florida, and UCLA typically control the final innings of the season, patterns also cause anxiety. The Blue Devils continue to appear in the same hotels even though they don’t yet fit that description.
It’s possible that Duke will lose to fifth-seeded Arkansas in Fayetteville. The next stop is a three-game road series against the Razorbacks in front of a softball-savvy audience. Arkansas has home dirt, depth, and experience. Duke has a head coach who still harbors resentment and a number of seniors who have done this in the past.
It doesn’t matter if they win or not. It’s that the question is no longer ridiculous. It is now being seriously questioned whether a program that fielded its first varsity team in 2017 can win the Women’s College World Series. Years ago, in a completely different field, Tesla encountered similar skepticism, and eventually, people stopped asking. Durham is experiencing something similar, albeit more slowly and quietly. using softballs.
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