WINSTON-SALEM – The ice was bound to be broken in the form of a big hit, Wake Forest’s Matt Scannell said.

He was the Deacon who provided the big one.

Scannell’s grand slam in the fifth inning cracked the seal on the scoreboard, leading to Wake Forest’s 7-0 victory against visiting St. John’s on Friday at David F. Couch Ballpark.

“Given the way the game was going, it felt like we were going to break through,” Scannell said of his first home run at Wake Forest, having transferred from Princeton. “It was just a matter of time.

“It’s always nice to be the one that does it but I think everybody was due at that point.”

It certainly felt that way.

Coming off a 4-0 loss at UNC Greensboro on Tuesday night, in which Wake Forest (5-1) only had two hits and five total baserunners, the first few innings were a story of missed opportunities. The Deacons stranded the bases loaded in the first inning, one in the second, and two more in both the third and fourth.

The first three runners of the bottom of the fifth inning reached base (two walks and an error), and St. John’s (0-4) made a pitching change. After a strikeout, Scannell’s time came to launch a deep drive over the billboards past the fence in right field.

“Our guys are pressing a little bit at the plate,” coach Tom Walter said. “Hopefully we can settle in tomorrow and get back to our approach. … I think it’s just early season stuff.

“Obviously, Matty Scannell’s at-bat was a huge one for us.”

As this was a game for big flies from players who hadn’t previously homered for Wake Forest, Butler transfer Kade Lewis led off the bottom of the seventh with one, and freshman Dalton Wentz hit a two-run homer in the eighth.

The shutout is Wake’s second of the season and first in a nine-inning game. It started with Logan Lunceford throwing five hitless innings, in which he racked up 12 strikeouts. The Missouri transfer punched out a 13th strikeout to start the sixth before giving up a single to leadoff hitter Jackson Tucker, and that was the end of Lunceford’s sterling start.

“I was just going out there to try and fill up the zone,” Lunceford said. “I looked up there (and saw how many strikeouts), I was like, ‘All right, let’s just keep on doing it.’”

The 5-10, 190-pound right-hander only had trouble in the third, when a one-out walk reached third via stolen base and his own throwing error on an errant pickoff attempt. He gave up a two-out walk to put runners on the corner before getting a strikeout to end the threat.

Will Ray pitched around traffic in the sixth and seventh, stranding two runners in each inning. Zach Johnston pitched the eighth and gave up two hits, but a smooth 6-4-3 double play to end the inning kept the shutout intact.

The double play came after an error charged to shortstop Marek Houston, who committed one Tuesday and has four errors in six games.

“He’s in a little bit of a defensive funk where he’s just thinking a little too much,” Walter said of his junior shortstop. “He’ll come out of that. We want the ball hit to him.”

Luke Schmolke pitched the ninth, working around a hit and a walk.

EXTRA BASES: Wake’s pitchers combined for 20 strikeouts, which is a season-high. … Lewis was the only Wake Forest player with a multi-hit game, going 2-for-2. But because the Deacons had eight walks, four others reached base multiple times. … One of those Deacons was catcher Jimmy Keenan, who transferred from St. John’s. He walked in each of his first two at-bats. … Wentz was in the leadoff spot in Wake’s lineup for the first time. Across Wake’s six games, the Deacons have had five different players atop their lineup.

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