Former Western Alamance standout ties ACC Tournament RBI record at Duke
Former Western Alamance star Kaden Smith drove in eight runs for Duke, tying the ACC Tournament record and putting Alamance County in the postseason spotlight.
A former Western Alamance standout put Alamance County on the ACC Tournament stage in Charlotte, driving in eight runs for Duke and tying the conference tournament record in a 21-12 first-round win over NC State.
Kaden Smith went 3-for-5 with two home runs at Truist Field on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, including a seventh-inning grand slam that helped break the game open for the No. 16-seeded Blue Devils. His eight RBI matched the ACC Tournament single-game mark set by Maryland’s Mike Murphy in 1985, giving Smith one of the most productive postseason performances in league history.
Duke’s offense overwhelmed NC State with 20 hits and 12 walks, and the Blue Devils scored 21 runs in an upset of the No. 9 seed. Smith’s production was central to that surge, and Duke’s official recap and the Atlantic Coast Conference’s game story both highlighted him as a key reason the Blue Devils advanced out of the opening round.
The performance also underscored what Smith had done across his first season in Durham. Duke’s 2026 cumulative statistics list him as the team RBI leader with 48, along with a .287 batting average, 50 hits, 32 runs, nine doubles, one triple and 13 home runs in 45 games. That power output made Smith one of Duke’s most dangerous bats all season, but the ACC Tournament game gave his year a signature moment.
Smith’s path to that stage has been anything but direct. Duke lists him as a graduate student from Yanceyville who attended Western Alamance High School in Elon, and his college stops included UNC Asheville, Wake Tech, Spartanburg Methodist and Charleston Southern before he arrived at Duke. For Alamance County readers, that route matters as much as the record line: a player who came through Western Alamance reached the top level of the ACC and delivered a performance that will sit in the conference record book.
Duke’s tournament run ended the next day in a 6-4 loss to Virginia, but Smith still produced a hit and an RBI in that game. Duke finished the season 26-31, leaving Smith’s eight-RBI night as the clearest marker of a year in which a former Western Alamance player became one of the ACC’s most efficient postseason hitters.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
