RALEIGH – Momentum is fickle and nasty business in baseball.

Wake Forest came to N.C. State playing its best baseball of the season and left with a trio of losses.

“The good news is we can’t play any worse than that,” coach Tom Walter said after Saturday’s 9-6 loss to the Wolfpack at Doak Field.

A night after defensive mistakes and a shoddy effort from the bullpen meant a one-run loss, well, defensive mistakes and a shoddy bullpen effort were the difference in Saturday’s game.

With the score knotted at 6-6 in the bottom of the eighth, and two outs, shortstop Marek Houston fielded a grounder and threw wide of first baseman Nick Kurtz, pulling him off the bag. That error — Wake’s fifth of the weekend — allowed the go-ahead run to score.

“We’ve gotta throw that ball with more confidence instead of guiding it over there. We’ve gotta stand behind it and throw it,” Walter said. “And I don’t know how far along the runner is, I’ve gotta look at it. Maybe that’s a play where we should come off the bag and tag. I mean, Kurtzy is usually so good at holding the bag, maybe that’s one of those plays where you come off and make a tag there.

“But I don’t know how far down the line the runner is.”

The situation worsened after Blake Morningstar replaced Joe Ariola on the mound. Morningstar got ahead of Garrett Pennington 1-2, couldn’t put him away, and he laced a two-run double down the right-field line for the insurance runs.

If ever a sour weekend had a fitting end, it was Houston, Kurtz and Jack Winnay — Wake’s top of the order — all striking out looking in the ninth against closer Derrick Smith.

Wake Forest (36-19, 15-15 ACC) had won nine straight games before this sweep, including last weekend’s three-game sweep of Clemson, which won the ACC’s Atlantic Division.

The Deacons are in next week’s ACC tournament as the No. 8 seed, along with top-seeded North Carolina — which swept Wake Forest in Winston-Salem this season — and No. 12 seed Pittsburgh.

Before that tournament starts, the Deacons have some searching to do.

“We’ve got a couple of days to get this right,” Walter said. “We’ve gotta find a way to beat Pitt and have Chase Burns against North Carolina for a chance to go to the semifinal.

“We really backed ourselves into a corner here, but I still think this team has a lot of great baseball left.”

Getting consistent offense would help, but that’s been hit or miss — puntentional — for most of the season.

Pitching and defense is where the Deacons were undone in Raleigh.

Five errors were committed over these three games, two of them by Houston and none more costly than the one that allowed Saturday’s go-ahead run.

The composite bullpen effort left a whole lot to be desired:

“I thought we played passive, I thought we played not to lose,” Walter said. “And that showed up. When you’re on the road, you’ve gotta play better.”

Wake Forest had control of this game because, finally, it got a big hit with a runner on base.

This was a 1-1 game after two innings, Jake Reinisch homering in the top of the second and Alex Sosa driving in a run in the bottom of that inning. Kurtz put the Deacons back in the lead with a sacrifice fly in the third, and then Winnay hit a two-run homer.

Another run was added to the lead in the fourth when Liam Willson singled — the freshman’s second hit of the game already — and Antonio Morales scored from first base because right fielder Noah Soles misplayed the ball.

N.C. State (32-19, 18-11) tied the game with a four-run fifth. The first of those scored on a single by Pennington, after a walk and a wild pitch by Josh Hartle. He gave up another single, which prompted a mound visit from pitching coach Corey Muscara.

His first pitch after the visit was Jacob Cozart demolishing a three-run homer, on a hanging breaking ball, to tie the game.

“He just made a bad pitch. He hung a breaking ball and Cozart didn’t miss it,” Walter said of Hartle.

The teams traded runs in the sixth — Seaver King hit a leadoff triple and scored on Adam Tellier’s single, while Alex Sosa homered for N.C. State — for the last of the scoring before N.C. State’s decisive three-run eighth.

EXTRA BASES: The schedule for the ACC tournament is set to be released on Sunday. … Tellier struck out looking in his first at-bat and finished 3-for-4. … N.C. State freshman left-hander Ryan Marohn (4-2) was the winning pitcher for his four relief innings, in which he gave up one run on five hits and a walk. … Jake Reinisch’s solo homer in the second was his 17th dinger of the season. For some perspective on how far he’s come: Last season he had 12 hits in 70 at-bats.