Jack Winnay’s bases-loaded walk in 9th inning gives Deacons dramatic win against Tennessee
Three times in the last two days, Wake Forest’s baseball season has been on the line.
For the third time, the Deacons staved off elimination — this time walking into a win.
Jack Winnay drew a four-pitch walk with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 7-6 win against Tennessee on Sunday night at Foley Field.
It sets up a winner-take-all final game of the Knoxville regional, which will be played at 8 p.m. Monday night and shown on ESPN2.
We’ll get to that point after Wake Forest (39-21) beat Miami (Ohio) in an elimination game on Saturday and Cincinnati in the first game on Sunday. It means the Deacons have beaten the other three teams of the Knoxville regional once each after losing the opener to Cincinnati.
The Deacons trailed only briefly and early against Tennessee (45-17).
Wake Forest opened up the scoring with Marek Houston’s solo home run in the first inning. Tennessee scored two unearned runs in the third against Logan Lunceford — he committed a throwing error with two outs, extending the inning.
The Deacons answered with three runs in the bottom half of the inning, getting two-out RBI doubles by Winnay and Dalton Wentz to make it a 4-2 lead. Javar Williams’ two-run home run in the fourth made it a 6-2 lead.
The Vols took two cracks to tie it up. Andrew Fischer hit a two-run homer in the fifth to cut the deficit in half; Levi Clark hit a two-run homer to tie it up in the sixth.
That’s where the score remained deadlocked — though, not for a lack of drama.
Tennessee alternated walks and outs in the seventh, Rhys Bowie issuing a leadoff walk and a one-out walk, and then Josh Gunther walking the bases loaded with two outs. But Gunther notched a strikeout to leave the bases loaded.
The Deacons put two runners in the seventh but Wentz struck out to end that inning.
Wake Forest catcher Jimmy Keenan hit a two-out triple — aided by a ball lost in the lights — in the eighth. He was stranded when Williams struck out.
Closer Haiden Leffew was called on to pitch the top of the ninth despite throwing 48 pitches against Miami (Ohio) on Saturday. He was electrifying, striking out the side and demonstrably leaving the mound and firing up Wake’s dugout.
Matt Scannell led off the bottom of the ninth with a full-count walk. Houston singled up the middle on a two-strike pitch, after failing to lay down a bunt. Kade Lewis did lay down a bunt, and pitcher Nate Snead didn’t make a throw after fielding it.
With the biggest repercussions, maybe the least-dramatic part of the final innings was Winnay’s walk — he watched four pitches and walked to first base.
And into Monday night’s game.
EXTRA BASES: Williams had two home runs in 154 regular-season at-bats; he has two homers in 14 at-bats of the regional. … The Deacons have hit 14 homers in four games of the regional, giving them 114 this season. That’s the third-most in a season in program history; the top four home run totals in single seasons are all in the past four years. … This was the first home regional loss, in 12 games, for Tennessee with Tony Vitello as head coach.