Cavs Fall To Wake Forest

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April 7, 2001

WINSTON-SALEM, NC – The Wake Forest baseball team posted 11 runs in the seventh inning to get its second comeback victory against Virginia in as many days. Yesterday, Wake Forest trailed 8-4 after six innings and came back to win. Today, the Deacons came back from an 8-3 deficit to defeat UVa on Saturday afternoon by a 14-8 score.

The Demon Deacons trailed by five runs after the seventh inning stretch but Wake Forest put together a major rally. Freshman first baseman Jamie D’Antona got things started with a leadoff home run to straight away center field. Before the Cavaliers could record an out, Carlos Brackley ripped a three-run home run to score Corey Slavik and Stephen Ghutzman. A pair of singles by Matt Price and Jason Aquilante preceded Cory Sullivan?s three-run blast over the right field wall.

In all, Wake Forest sent 15 batters to the plate, and finished the inning with 11 runs on ten hits. The Deacons nearly scored a 12th run but Jamie Athas was cut down at home plate on Matt Price’s double for the third out. When the dust cleared, Virginia’s five-run lead had evaporated and turned into a six-run deficit.

“Good hitting can be contagious and it was for us today. Sometimes things just begin to snowball,” head coach George Greer said. “Just about everyone hit the ball hard today and that’s a good sign for the remainder of the season.”

Brad Comer earned his first win of the season with 3.2 innings of no-hit scoreless relief, his longest outing of the season. Comer struck out two Cavalier batters and walked just one. Canon Hickman suffered the loss for Virginia, going just 0.1 innings with seven runs, five earned, on six hits. He retired just one of the eight Deacon hitters he faced.

The Deacons had several offensive stars in the game as four batters had at least three hits, including Nick Blue, Jamie D’Antona and Carlos Brackley. Matt Price tied a career-high four hits and has six base hits in the series. Price improves his lifetime batting average to .565 (13-of-23) against Virginia.

The three home runs in the seventh were the most in a single inning this season. The Deacons had hit a pair in the same inning four times previous to day. The 11 runs was the most runs scored by Wake Forest in an inning this season. It tied for the third highest run total in a single inning in school history, the most since 1992 when Wake scored 16 at home against Campbell.

The Demon Deacons up their overall record to 22-10 and 8-6 in the conference. Wake Forest and Virginia will wrap up the weekend series on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Senior Cory Sullivan will make the start for the Deacons and Dan Street gets the ball for Virginia.

Virginia (17-16, 5-9) 014 300 000 – 8 11 3
Wake Forest (22-10, 8-6) 101 1000 (11)0X – 14 19 0