DURHAM – The start of this game went great for Duke, getting back-to-back home runs in the top of the first inning.

The rest of it had too many nightmarish moments.

Murray State beat Duke 19-9 on Sunday afternoon at Jack Coombs Field, evening this super regional series at one game apiece and forcing a decisive Game 3 to be played Monday.

Murray State (43-15) pulled away from Duke (41-20) twice — first with a five-run fourth inning. That turned a two-run lead into a seven-run cushion, and the Racers looked to be in control there.

That changed in the top of the sixth.

AJ Gracia and Ben Miller walked to start that inning and scored on an inside-outed double by Ben Rounds down the third base line. Rounds scored on a wild pitch, and Macon Winslow punctuated the inning with a two-out, two-run homer that made it 10-8.

And then came all of the daggers.

Murray State exploded for nine runs in the seventh inning, with four two-run hits — the last two of which were homers.

That put this game out of reach. And, in the most ominous of stats, meant that Duke lost its sixth straight game when it only needed one win to reach Omaha — one game in 2018, two losses in 2019 and ’23 after winning series openers, and this latest one.

The Blue Devils will get one more chance with a decisive Game 3 on Monday.

Gracia and Miller hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the first for Duke — the Blue Devils were the designated road team for this one — in some un-scriptable fashion, given both of their statuses for the past week.

The lead didn’t last long.

Jonathan Hogart led off the bottom of the inning with a homer. The next five Racers all reached base, on three singles and two walks, to take a 3-2 lead. Kyle Johnson minimized the damage by striking out three straight batters to escape the inning.

Murray State stretched that lead with Carson Garner’s two-run homer in the second inning. Johnson, Duke’s offensive hero in Game 1, gave up six runs in three-plus innings of work as the starter.

Out of eight pitchers used by the Blue Devils, six of them gave up multiple runs.

Duke got one of those runs back with Wallace Clark’s leadoff homer in the third; but that inning ended with a double-play groundout by Jake Hyde, the first of seven straight Blue Devils retired.