Published May 11, 2025
Wake Forest wins finale, series against Pittsburgh
circle avatar
Conor O'Neill  •  DeaconsIllustrated
Publisher
Twitter
@ConorONeill_DI

Wake Forest climbed back above .500 in the ACC by beating Pittsburgh 6-3 on Sunday at David F. Couch Ballpark.

A three-run sixth inning took Wake Forest from down by one run to up two, and the Deacons added an insurance run in the eighth. A three-man bullpen of Duncan Marsten, Zach Johnston and Josh Gunther combined for five no-hit innings to close out the game.

The Deacons (34-17, 14-13 ACC) have one ACC series remaining — that coming at Louisville, a three-game set that starts Thursday and ends Saturday.

The bottom three of Wake’s lineup combined for seven of the team’s 11 hits. Matt Scannell was 3-for-3 and scored three times; Jimmy Keenan was 2-for-4 with the RBI single that tied the game in the sixth; and Javar Williams was 2-for-3.

After Keenan tied the game, Austin Hawke hit a sacrifice fly to put the Deacons ahead 4-3. Marek Houston singled to load the bases, and Kade Lewis hit a sacrifice fly to make it 5-3.

Scannell was hit by a pitch to start the bottom of the eighth, he stole second, moved up to third on a flyout, and scored on a wild pitch for that insurance run.

Chris Levonas started for Wake Forest and allowed one run on four hits and two walks. He struck out five. Marsten relieved him and gave up two runs in the fifth without allowing a hit — that was because of one hit batter, two walks, a wild pitch and an RBI groundout.

Marsten (2-0) pitched a second inning, the sixth, in which he didn’t allow a run and with the Deacons taking the lead in the bottom of the inning, he picked up the win.

Johnston entered and pitched 1 2/3 innings, allowing a walk and a hit batter. Gunther entered with two outs in the eighth and retired all four batters he faced, two of them via strikeout.