WINSTON-SALEM – Wake Forest’s baseball team managed just fine without two of its sluggers for the past few weeks.

One swing and a moonshot two-run home run by one of them, Nick Kurtz, in the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s game against Liberty was reminder enough of how good the Deacons are at full strength.

“I mean, it sucks not playing, we all want to play,” Kurtz said. “But it makes us feel better when we’re not playing and we’re still going out there and winning, we’re sweeping ACC teams every single weekend, it makes you feel better about the situation, knowing you can take the full time to recover.”

Kurtz’s two-run blast was the first half of a four-run seventh that delivered a 7-4 win over visiting Liberty.

It was Kurtz’s second game back from a leg injury and first game back at first base, as he was the DH in Sunday’s loss at Louisville, which snapped a 10-game winning streak in ACC play. Wednesday night's win means Wake Forest (32-5) hasn’t lost consecutive games this season.

“Sunday felt kind of weird, it was the first time I DH’d in I don’t know how long. I didn’t like it,” Kurtz said, the last four words being curt. “So it was good to be back in the field. I feel just about 100%, if not 100%, and I didn’t feel it at all today.”

The embarrassment-of-riches aspect of Wake’s lineup is back on full display with the return of Kurtz and Adam Cecere, who had been sidelined with a hamstring injury since March 21.

Wake Forest went 12-2 without Cecere and within that, the Deacons had to win some games without overpowering teams. Seven of those wins came with the Deacons scoring six runs or fewer.

For good measure, Wake’s bullpen turned in another stellar performance, with five pitchers combining for 5 1/3 shutout innings, three hits, two walks and eight strikeouts on Wednesday night.

Cecere batted seventh and was 0-for-4, which doesn’t seem like too much cause for concern about a fourth-year player who has the highest slugging percentage on the team (.792) and has 23 homers and 82 RBI in 81 games between last season and this one.

“It gives us good length to the lineup,” coach Tom Walter said of the joint return. “Hopefully we can get (Jake) Reinisch going and (Danny) Corona, we can’t forget about those guys.”

Cecere missing a month and Kurtz missing about two weeks meant both were getting impatient, and that meant disappointment this past weekend when it was only Kurtz DH’ing on Sunday.

The goal, though, has been to get them back with comfort that they weren’t rushed.

“They both wanted to be in there Friday against Louisville and we just had to pump the brakes and just make sure,” Walter said. “I liked the way (Cecere) ran down the line on the one ground ball, that showed me he’s probably a little further along than we thought.

“And then Kurtzy went first-to-third on a ball, it didn’t look like he was too hindered, either.”

It was the slugger who’s remained the constant in Wake’s lineup who started the scoring against Liberty (17-19).

Brock Wilken lined a three-run homer in the first inning that barely cleared the corner of the left-field fence. That was the at-bat after Kurtz worked an eight-pitch walk in which he battled back from down 0-2.

Comparing launch angles of Wake’s two homers in the game is a fun exercise: Wilken’s was 18 degrees and Kurtz’s was 45 degrees, per Wake Forest Baseball Analytics.

“I told Brock, ‘I’ll give you some of my launch angle and you give me some of yours, and we both hit nukes,’” Kurtz joked afterward.

Wilken’s homer stood as Wake’s only runs for longer than most would have anticipated at the time.

The Deacons’ lead was short-lived; Reed Mascolo had given up one run in the first and Liberty’s Cam Foster hit a two-run homer in the second that tied the game at 3-3.

Victor Castillo’s solo homer to right-center in the fourth helped chase Mascolo from the mound and gave Liberty a 4-3 lead, which is where the game stagnated until Kurtz’s two-run homer in the seventh.