The offense was there again, first with some timely hitting by Wake Forest’s baseball team and then a few moonshot home runs.

But the story of the Deacons extending their season starts with Matthew Dallas.

Wake’s sophomore left-hander pitched seven shutout innings in a career performance, leading the way for the Deacons’ 10-3 victory against Cincinnati on Sunday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.

Wake Forest (38-21) will play regional host Tennessee on Sunday night. If the Deacons win that game, they’ll play the Vols again Monday in a decisive Game 7 of the regional.

It became more and more evident Wake Forest would stave off elimination for the second straight afternoon as Dallas settled into a groove.

The transfer from Tennessee — and native of Memphis, Tenn. — gave up three runs in the eighth inning to lose the shutout. His final line was 7 2/3 innings, eight hits and one walk allowed, with four strikeouts. Dallas (5-1) threw 115 pitches, blowing past his season-high of 95.

Wake’s first two starting pitchers in regional games this weekend, Blake Morningstar against this same Cincinnati (33-26) team and Chris Levonas against Miami (Ohio) on Saturday, combined for 5 2/3 innings, 11 hits, 14 runs and seven walks.

Cincinnati’s first two batters of the first reached on a bunt single and a hit-by-pitch. But Dallas bore down and notched a couple of strikeouts, and then an inning-ending flyout, all while holding Kerrington Cross at second base with six pickoff throws.

The 6-5, 195-pound lefty found a groove either in that inning or shortly after, retiring 16 of 17 batters from the first to the sixth inning. Cincinnati’s second hit came with one out in the sixth; the next pitch resulted in a 4-6-3 double play by a Wake Forest defense that hasn’t been all that sharp lately, either.

And by that point in the sixth, Wake’s bats had already gone to work in building a substantial lead.

Wake Forest cracked the code offensively in the third. It started with Matt Conte being hit by a pitch, and then Matt Scannell worked a one-out walk. Marek Houston’s single scored Conte for the game’s first run.

Two batters later, Jack Winnay lined a double off the wall in left field to drive in two. Dalton Wentz capped the four-run inning with a sacrifice fly, scoring Kade Lewis (who had walked before Winnay).

Wake Forest added to the lead with an unearned run in the fourth, and then a solo homer by Austin Hawke in the fifth.

Scannell obliterated a ball over the scoreboard in right field in the top of the sixth to make it an 8-0 game. Houston capped a 3-for-5, four-RBI game with a towering two-run homer in the eighth to put Wake Forest in double-digit runs scored for the third time in the last four games.

Luke Schmolke relieved Dallas in the eighth and stranded a runner. He issued two free passes (one hit batter, one walk) with two outs in the ninth before Jack Natili hit a deep fly ball to end the game.

EXTRA BASES: Scannell has 11 homers this season and five of them have come in Wake’s last 11 games. … Hawke’s homer heater has been more impressive, with eight since a May 4 game against Gardner-Webb. … The only other games between Wake Forest and Tennessee came under similar circumstances 24 years ago. The Deacons lost the first game of a Knoxville regional, won two games, and beat the Vols in the first game of the regional final before losing the decisive Game 7.