Wake Forest extends season by bashing Binghamton
There’s little need for home runs and walks when you just hit line drives all over the ballpark.
Such was the formula for Wake Forest beating Binghamton 12-3 in an elimination game on Saturday at Kendrick Family Ballpark.
Wake Forest (39-20) extended its season to a Sunday afternoon matchup against the loser of tonight’s game between host West Virginia and 3-seed Kentucky. If the Deacons win that elimination game, they’ll play again Sunday night.
Wake Forest scored 10 runs between the second and fifth innings. Perhaps the most surprising part of that was the Deacons doing so without a home run or a walk.
They just lasered the ball around the field with 12 hits — six of them doubles. Binghamton provided some early help, too, with two errors in a two-run second inning and another error in the third. Wake Forest finished the game with 15 hits, eight of them for extra bases.
Five of the runs came in the fourth. That started with Javar Williams’ bunt scoring one, followed by Luke Costello’s RBI single, and then Kade Lewis’ two-run double off of the wall. Matt Conte added an RBI double.
Williams, Lewis, Dalton Wentz and Conte each had two-hit games in the top five of Wake’s order. Coupled with Blake Schaaf’s four-hit day and JD Stein’s 2-for-5 at the bottom of the order, Wake’s offense was firing at a high level.
The Deacons finally got a walk in the seventh, their first of the regional. Friday’s game without a batter taking a walk was the first time since the super regional opener against Alabama in 2023 that a Deacon didn’t walk — a span of 183 games.
And Wake Forest finally got a homer in the eighth, with Williams launching his 10th of the season.
Cameron Bagwell (3-1) cruised through the first four innings, allowing two hits and a walk. But he gave up three runs in the fifth, and then loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth.
Enter Zach Johnston, Wake’s senior lefty who’s emerged as a dominant reliever in the past two months. A strikeout and 5-4-3 double play ended the sixth; he retired all three batters in the seventh; and after a single in the eighth, Johnston was picked up by Schaaf turning a 4-3 double play.
Johnston only threw 22 pitches to record eight outs, meaning he’s likely available Sunday.
Blake Morningstar finished it off, retiring all four batters he faced. That only took 17 pitches, increasing the likelihood he takes the mound again this weekend.
