Deacons win first two games at Florida State to seal best record in league
Wake Forest has been the best team in the ACC all baseball season and now has a title to show for it.
The top-ranked Deacons won the first two games at Florida State, mercy-ruling the Seminoles on Friday night 10-0 and winning a tighter-than-the-score-indicates 7-3 game on Saturday.
That puts Wake Forest (42-7) at 20-5 in ACC play this season and with four games left, the Deacons clinched the regular-season crown and No. 1 seed in the ACC tournament later this month.
Wake Forest finishes the series at Florida State on Sunday, and then has a home series against Virginia Tech next weekend.
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Here’s a quick recap of the first two games at Florida State:
Wake Forest 10, Florida State 0 (8 innings)
On Friday, Rhett Lowder (11-0) furthered his case to repeat as ACC pitcher of the year with seven shutout innings, allowing four hits, zero walks and striking out six.
It was Lowder’s second straight Friday night start of seven shutout innings. Wake Forest has won all 13 games that Lowder has started this season.
Wake Forest scored two runs in the second inning on a sac fly by Pierce Bennett and Marek Houston’s double. Danny Corona hit a three-run home run in the fourth to provide cushion.
The Deacons blew open the game and ended it an inning early by getting a Brock Wilken homer in the seventh, and then a four-run eighth in which Houston and Wilken each drove in a run, and Lucas Costello had a two-run single.
Wake Forest 7, Florida State 3
On Saturday, the game was scoreless midway through the sixth, and then each team scored at least one run in every at-bat until the Seminoles went down in order in the bottom of the ninth.
Cam Smith started FSU’s scoring with an RBI single in the bottom of the sixth. That was matched by Justin Johnson’s solo homer that tied the game in the top of the seventh.
Florida State regained the lead on Deamez Ross’ RBI single in the seventh. Nick Kurtz’s two-run homer in the eighth game Wake Forest its first lead of the game, but the Seminoles knotted things back up in the bottom of the inning on James Tibbs’ solo homer.
That led to Wake’s four-run ninth. The first two runs were scored on bases-loaded hit by pitches, with Adam Cecere and Houston on the receiving end of the pitches. Costello drove in a run with a single and the last one scored on Kurtz’s fielder’s choice.
Michael Massey (3-0) entered for Josh Hartle in the seventh and pitched the final 2 2/3 innings, including a 1-2-3 ninth.
