Racers Fall to Duke in Super Regional Game 1

Saturday, June 7

Durham, NC

12 p.m.

Murray State

42-15

Duke

42-19

Murray State

Duke

Photo by: David Eaton-Murray State Athletics

6/7/2025 4:45:00 PM | Baseball

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The Racers face an elimination game Sunday at Jack Coombs Field in Durham

The Murray State Racers dropped a 7-4 decision Saturday in game one of the NCAA Durham Super Regional to the Duke Blue Devils at Jack Coombs Field in Durham, North Carolina.

Game two of the best two-of-three series is played Sunday at 12 p.m. Eastern Time/11 a.m. Eastern Time. The game will air on one of the ESPN channels that will be announced later. The Racers must win to force a third and deciding game Monday. The winner of the series gets a spot in next week's College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska (June 13-23).

The Racers scored the first two runs of the game on a sacrifice fly by Dan Tauken in the first inning and an RBI base hit by Dom Decker in the third.

After Duke tied it 2-2 in the bottom of the third, they took the lead for good in the fourth when they plated three more runs for a 5-2 advantage against MSU starter Nic Schutte.

The Racers scored two runs in the top of the seventh, on a hit by Decker and a sacrifice fly from Luke Mistone to make it a 7-4 game, but weren't able to mount a comeback in their final two times at bat.

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Game Notes

The Racers and Blue Devils met for the first time today.
The Racers are 5-8 all-time in the NCAA Tournament as they are making their fourth all-time appearance after playing in the event in 1975, 1979 and 2003.
The Racers did not commit an error today and have committed only four in their five games played.
Entering the game the Racers had won 27 out of 31 games when scoring first, but lost for the just the fifth time today in this scenario.
MSU faced three Duke lefties today and are now 9-6 this season when facing a lefty starter.
Nic Schutte was going for his eighth win of 2025 today and came up short. His stat line was: 4IP, 2H, 5R, 5ER, 5BB, 3K.
Schutte's strikeout total for the season is at 94 as he made a run at the MSU all time record of 101 by MSU Hall of famer George Dugan in 1964.
Dugan did it in only 56 innings for an amazing strikeout rate of 16.2 batters per game.
MSU's Dom Decker had the hot bat today for the Racers and banged out four of the team's nine hits.
Decker also extended his on-base streak to 39 games today.
In the postseason that includes the Racers winning the Missouri Valley Tournament and the NCAA Oxford Regional and today's game against Duke, he is hitting .351 (13-for-37).
Oxford MVP, Dustin Mercer, went 2-for-5 today and is hitting an incredible .512 MSU's nine postseason games on 21-for41.
Dylan Zentko tossed 1.2 innings today with 2 earned runs on three hits with one strikeout and walk.
Reese Oakley came on as the third MSU pitcher of the day and threw 2.1 innings on one hit, no runs and a pair of walks and strikeouts.