Late Innings Lead Wake Past Noles

TALLAHASSEE, Florida – No. 1 Wake Forest clinched its weekend series against Florida State with a back-and-forth 7-3 victory at Dick Howser Stadium Saturday afternoon. Conner Whittaker extended his scoreless inning streak to 14.0 before the Demon Deacons managed to score all seven runs over the final three innings.

Neither team scored over the first five innings, which took just one hour to complete. The Seminoles took a 1-0 lead in the sixth when Jaime Ferrer tripled and scored on Cam Smith’s single.

The Demon Deacons tied it on a solo home run in the seventh inning by Justin Johnson, his 13^th of the year. The Noles countered in the bottom of the inning when Colton Vincent reached on an error, Jordan Carrion walked and DeAmez Ross gave FSU a 2-1 lead with a two-out single. Ross’s hit extended his hitting streak to 12 games, the longest for an FSU freshman since 2013.

Wake Forest took its first lead with a two-run home run in the eighth inning on Whittaker’s final pitch. The sophomore left-hander – and most of Dick Howser Stadium – thought he had struck out Nick Kurtz looking two pitches prior to the lefties 20^th home run of the season.

James Tibbs earned his first hit of the weekend with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the eighth against Wake reliever Michael Massey to again tie the score at 3-3.

In the ninth, Wake Forest sent nine batters to the plate and scored four runs on three singles, a walk, two bases-loaded HBPs and an RBI fielder’s choice.

Nander De Sedas and Vincent were recognized pregame in a Senior Day ceremony; the pair has combined to play in 297 games over the last five seasons.

SCORING SUMMARY:

B6 | WF 0, FSU 1                    Smith singled, Ferrer scored
T7 | WF 1, FSU 1                    Johnson home run
B7 | WF 1, FSU 2                    Ross singled, Vincent scored
T8 | WF 3, FSU 2                    Kurtz home run, Costello scored
B8 | WF 3, FSU 3                    Tibbs home run
T9 | WF 4, FSU 3                    Cecere hit by pitch, Johnson scored
T9 | WF 5, FSU 3                    Houston hit by pitch, Corona scored
T9 | WF 6, FSU 3                    Costello singled, Lee scored
T9 | WF 7, FSU 3                    Kurtz reached on fielder’s choice, Cecere scored

UP NEXT:

Sunday’s series finale between FSU and Wake…