Published May 21, 2022
Wake Forest baseball weekend recap
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Conor O'Neill  •  DeaconsIllustrated
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Deacons sweep N.C. State, earn first-ever sweep in Raleigh and sixth seed in ACC tournament

Wake Forest’s baseball team ended the regular season on the highest of notes, earning the program’s first ever three-game sweep at N.C. State.

The Deacons (39-16-1, 15-14-1 ACC) locked up the sixth seed in next week’s ACC tournament, in which they’ll be in a three-team pod with third-seeded Miami and 10th-seeded N.C. State. Wake Forest and Miami didn’t play this season – obviously it’s a fresh result with the Deacons and Wolfpack.

Wake Forest got the most-complete weekend pitching performance in quite a while, given the stakes – the Deacons showed up as both “last four in” and “first four out” teams in NCAA tournament projections earlier this week. It started with a complete game by ace Rhett Lowder and culminated with a 7 1/3-inning, one-hit performance from Teddy McGraw on Sunday.

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Here is a brief recap of each game from this weekend:

Wake Forest 8, N.C. State 2

It’s hard to imagine a better start to an important series for what has been a struggling Deacons team.

Lowder (10-3) pitched a complete game, allowing five hits – two of them solo homers – and striking out six batters without walking anybody. He got through the game on 89 pitches and preserved Wake’s bullpen for the final two games of the series.

Wake Forest led early after a two-run homer by Brock Wilken in the second inning. N.C. State cut the lead in half with LuJames Groover III’s homer in the fourth, and that was the only scoring until the eight.

The Deacons added an insurance run in the eighth on an RBI single by Brendan Tinsman; N.C. State came back with a homer by freshman sensation Tommy White in the bottom half. White’s homer gave him the single-season ACC record for homers by a freshman (23).

Wake Forest blew the game open in the ninth, first with a three-run homer by Michael Turconi, and then two-run, two-out double by Adam Cecere. That gave Lowder the cushion needed to finish off the complete game.

Wake Forest 6, N.C. State 2

The script wasn’t identical to the first game, but there were a few similarities.

Wake Forest got out to an early but slim lead, getting an RBI groundout by Tinsman and an RBI single by Nick Kurtz in the first inning. Tinsman hit a solo homer in the third and N.C. State scratched across a run in the fourth on a wild pitch – and again, that was where the scoring ended until the eighth inning.

Kurtz blew the game open with a three-run homer in the eighth, the 13th homer of his impressive freshman season.

Josh Hartle (6-6) pitched five innings and only allowed one run on four hits and two walks. Seth Keener pitched two scoreless innings in relief, and Camden Minacci picked up a five-out save by pitching around a jam in the eighth, and then firing a 1-2-3 ninth.

Wake Forest 5, N.C. State 0

McGraw (5-2) only allowed one hit, taking a no-hitter into the sixth. He finished with three walks and seven strikeouts, with Crawford Wade recording the last two outs of the eighth and Minacci pitching a scoreless ninth to end the shutout.

As Kurtz finished Wake’s scoring Friday night, he started the Deacons’ scoring Saturday with a solo home run. Tinsman hit another homer too, with Jake Reinisch adding an RBI single in the fourth.

The Deacons’ other runs came in the seventh, one scoring on an error and the other on a sac fly by Kurtz, who was 7-for-9 with six RBI, five runs scored, four walks and two homers in the series.