Wake Forest found a way to lose a game started by Chase Burns in which it put 14 runners on base.

N.C. State beat visiting Wake Forest 2-1 with a walk-off walk on Friday night at Doak Field, guaranteeing a series win after winning Thursday night’s opener by the mercy rule.

The end of the game was rather melodramatic; Zach Johnston, in his second inning of work, loaded the bases with one out. He was relieved by Cole Roland, who issued a walk to Noah Soles that pushed across the game-winning run.

It was only Roland’s second walk of his season.

Johnston relieved Burns to start the eighth. Burns gave up one run, which was unearned because of a throwing error by shortstop Marek Houston, in the fifth. Burns matched a season-high with seven innings, allowing five hits and notching another 13 strikeouts, without giving up a walk.

A sixth-inning strikeout of Garrett Pennington was Burns’ 12th of the game and moved him into fifth place for the ACC’s single-season strikeout record. It was his 168th of the season; Louisville’s Reid Detmers had 167 in 2019. Fourth place in ACC history is former N.C. State workhorse Carlos Rodon, who had 184 strikeouts in 2013.

Wake’s offense wasn’t absent; it was just absent any hits of consequence, save a chopped RBI double down the left-field line by Houston in the fifth.

The Deacons had three hits, two of them by Houston. They walked eight times — three by Nick Kurtz, two each by Houston and Adam Tellier — and had three batters hit by pitches.

Wake Forest stranded at least one runner in every inning. The killer was the seventh, in which a hit batter and two walks loaded the bases with one out in a 1-1 game. Jack Winnay struck out and Jake Reinisch grounded out to end the inning; they were a combined 0-for-9 with four strikeouts and seven runners stranded as the Nos. 3 and 4 hitters in the lineup, respectively.