Why a walk-off homer vs. Duke could be this Davidson player’s final baseball memory

Brett Centracchio’s final swing as a Davidson baseball player will be a memory that will never leave him.

On March 10, the Wildcats trailed 10th-ranked Duke 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning at BB&T Ballpark in uptown Charlotte.

Centracchio, Davidson’s senior first baseman, had struggled at the plate against the Blue Devils, striking out his first three times up. With a man on, one out and down a run, Centracchio came to bat, looking for something up in the strike zone he could drive over the fence against Duke’s Thomas Girard — one of the top closers in the country.

Davidson coach Rucker Taylor called him aside first.

“I thought he might tell me to look for something to bunt,” Centracchio said.

Said Taylor: “Brett’s not a guy you have to tell to swing hard and drive it. He’s normally very aggressive. So I told him to get a slider up and hit it there.”

Taylor pointed to the right-field stands.

“Gotcha,” Centracchio said.

Centracchio, who bats left-handed, first took a ball from Girard. Then he found the pitch he was looking for. He hit Girard’s high slider deep to right field, watching it as it landed in the stands.

Centracchio flipped his bat, rounded the bases and was met by a mob of his teammates at the plate.

“Looking back, it didn’t go as far out as I thought it would,” Centracchio said. “I thought I’d hit it into the park across the street. I get happy in those moments and I like to show it. So I had a little fun, my emotions took over. I decided to flip the bat.”

The Wildcats won, 7-6, improving their record to 13-3, the best start in program history. And that’s where their season — and possibly Centracchio’s career — ended as the NCAA shut down spring sports to help curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, leaving seniors like Davidson’s first baseman wondering if they’ll ever play again.

“It was really a strange moment,” Taylor said of his announcement to the team that season was over. “The hurt on their faces, I’ll never forget that.”

Centracchio is most disappointed that he’ll never know how this season might have turned out. He was a freshman on another special Davidson team which reached the 2017 NCAA tournament’s super regional, in which he hit a home run against Texas A&M.

“I feel like we could have done some great things,” Centracchio said. “We were really putting things together.”

Taylor said he was happy all of Davidson’s other senior position players — outfielders Greg Lowe and Walker Imwalle, third baseman Alex Fedje-Johnson (who was on base when Centracchio hit his homer), catcher Zach Nussbaum and second baseman Matt Frey — played against Duke. Senior pitcher Jared Lacagnina also got in the game.

The NCAA announced March 13 that it plans to extend the eligibility of Division I athletes who participate in spring sports. Centracchio, who is on track to graduate later this spring, would not be able to play again at Davidson, which doesn’t have a graduate school. But he could potentially play that extra season elsewhere as a grad transfer.

“Right now, my goal is to keep playing baseball,” said Centracchio, who will earn a degree in business whenever Davidson is able to hold its commencement exercises. “Hopefully, I’ll get drafted. But if that doesn’t work out, maybe I can get that extra year of eligibility somewhere else.”

After the Duke game, Centracchio found his dad Greg, who was sitting in the right field stands, and gave him the home run ball.

Greg played college baseball at Hartford and his first home run for the Hawks was, believe it or not, against Davidson. Greg was also a college teammate of Jeff Bagwell, who went on to a hall-of-fame career with the Houston Astros.

The two are still close. They were best men at each other’s weddings and Bagwell is Brett’s godfather.

“Baggy’s been a huge help to me,” Brett said. “I’ve gone to hit with him in the offseason sometimes. It’s definitely a good resource, having a hall of famer helping you out.”

Maybe Brett and Bagwell will keep working out together for the chance that Centracchio is able to play again, even if it’s not at Davidson.

And he’ll always have that walk-off against Duke to remember.

“Even though it’s not something that I’m thinking about now, I think when I look back maybe 10 years from now, that would probably be the best thing,” Centracchio said. “That’s something you dream about as a kid, hitting a walk-off, getting mobbed by the guys at home plate. I’ll remember that the rest of my life. That was probably my final swing.

“Hey, it’s better than striking out for your last at-bat.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.