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Published Apr 5, 2024
Wake Forest baseball weekend recap
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Conor O'Neill  â€¢  DeaconsIllustrated
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The best way to come back from getting swept at home?

Going on the road and getting a sweep, of course.

Wake Forest (21-10, 7-8 ACC) won all three games at Virginia Tech (21-8, 10-5) this weekend, beating the Hokies 8-5, 6-3 and 10-4. The Deacons were swept at home by North Carolina last weekend.

"If they could give a pitcher of the week to a bullpen, they would give it to ours, because our bullpen was very special this weekend," Wake Forest coach Tom Walter said via news release. "Of course, Nick Kurtz, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a display like that. Especially on a day like today with the wind blowing in. Seaver King had some really great at bats again (Sunday). ... The story of the weekend was our bullpen and Nick Kurtz."

Here is a recap of each game this weekend:

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Wake Forest 10, Virginia Tech 4

On Sunday, Nick Kurtz announced that he is all the way back with a three-homer, seven-RBI day.

Kurtz, who missed about a week and a half last month, has homered in five straight games (eight homers in that span). He started the scoring in this one with a two-run blast in the first inning.

The Hokies tied the game with two runs in the bottom of the first. So, when Kurtz came back up in the third with Marek Houston walking and Adam Tellier getting plunked in front of him, Kurtz’s three-run bomb broke a 2-2 tie.

The teams traded runs in the middle innings, Virginia Tech scoring in the fourth and sixth, Wake Forest in the fifth. Seaver King homered in the eighth for Wake’s first bit of insurance, and then Kurtz’s two-run homer in the ninth — along with another RBI on a sacrifice fly by King — put the Deacons up 10-4.

King was 1-for-3 and drove in Wake’s three runs that weren’t supplied by Kurtz’s homers.

Wake Forest got four innings out of Michael Massey (4-1), in which he gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits and three walks.

Five pitchers out of Wake’s bullpen combined for five innings, one unearned run, three hits and two walks, with five strikeouts. Haiden Leffew recorded the most outs (five) and also gave up the unearned run, and both walks.

Blake Morningstar got one out in the sixth. After that, it was an inning apiece by Josh Gunther, Zach Johnston and Will Ray.

Wake Forest 6, Virginia Tech 3

On Saturday, Seaver King hit a three-run homer in the second inning and Wake Forest never trailed.

King’s blast came after Jack Winnay walked and Jake Reinisch singled to begin the inning. It was his eighth homer of the season.

Virginia Tech got two of the runs back in the bottom half of the inning, with Sam Tackett hitting an RBI single and Carson DeMartini getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.

Those were the only runs Josh Hartle (5-1) gave up, though. Wake’s junior left-hander pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing five hits and three walks and striking out eight.

Wake Forest pushed the lead to 5-2 before Hartle’s exit, with Winnay and Reinisch notching two-out singles that drove in runs in the fifth.

Blake Morningstar got the last out of the fifth and pitched a 1-2-3 sixth. Zach Johnston pitched around a one-out walk in the seventh and got an out in the eighth, and Will Ray relieved him and got the last two outs of the eighth.

Cole Roland pitched the ninth and gave up one run on a double and a balk. It wasn’t a save opportunity because Nick Kurtz, who was 3-for-4 with a double and a walk, blasted a solo homer in the top half of the inning.

Wake Forest 8, Virginia Tech 5

On Friday, Burns gave up a run in the first inning on a wild pitch and a grand slam in the third, but pitched through the seventh, steadying things for Wake Forest.

Burns retired 13 of the last 15 batters he faced after Eddie Micheletti Jr.’s grand slam. Wake’s junior ace has double-digit strikeouts in seven of his eight starts this season, but had stopped at 14 twice.

For the season, Burns has 97 strikeouts in 50 2/3 innings. That’s a strikeout-per-9 clip of 17.2.

Wake Forest scored five runs in the fourth and those turned out to be the final runs of the game. Marek Houston started the scoring in that inning with an RBI single, and Adam Tellier had a sacrifice fly that tied the game at 5-5.

Jack Winnay’s two-out, two-run double gave the Deacons the lead, and Jake Reinisch’s double to drive in Winnay provided the three-run margin.

After Burns’ exit, David Falco Jr. pitched the eighth, walking two and striking out one. Josh Gunther picked up his first save of the season by pitching the ninth, striking out the first two batters, issuing a walk and getting a flyout to end the game.

Early scoring for the Deacons came on an RBI groundout by Cam Nelson and solo homers by Nick Kurtz and Reinisch.

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