Baseball Finishes Off Sweep of Wake Forest, 21-5
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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. The Virginia baseball team continued its recent offensive onslaught with a 21-5 pummeling of Wake Forest Sunday afternoon at Wake Forest Baseball Park. UVa swept the three-game series, the Cavaliers’ first ACC season-opening sweep since 2004 at Georgia Tech.
Virginia improved its record to 12-0 this season (3-0 ACC) the best 12-game start in school history. The 12-game winning streak is the longest active streak in the nation, pending Georgia’s result today with Quinnipiac.
UVa racked up 47 runs in the series, the Cavaliers’ most in an ACC series since the Cavaliers piled up 50 at Maryland in 1990. For the third straight game, every Virginia starter had at least one base hit, and the Cavaliers finished the series with 61 hits, including a season-high 25 Sunday.
Jarrett Parker (So., Stafford, Va.) and John Hicks (Fr., Sandy Hook, Va.) each had a career-high four hits. Parker doubled three times, scored three times and drove in a pair, while Hicks fell a double short of the cycle, scored four times and drove in three. Franco Valdes (Jr., Miami, Fla.) homered as part of a 3-for-6 effort and drove in four runs. Tyler Cannon (Jr., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) finished his monster weekend with a double and three RBI. He went 8-for-13 with five doubles, seven runs scored and seven RBI in the series.
On the mound, Virginia’s Will Roberts (Fr., Richmond, Va.) pitched six strong innings, allowing three earned runs, seven hits and two walks while striking out seven in improving to 2-0 this year. UVa lit up Wake starter Michael Dimock (0-1) for 12 earned runs and 13 hits in 3.1 innings.
The Cavaliers scored first when Hicks drilled a solo home run to left field in the second inning. It was Hicks’ second homer of the season.
Wake Forest (6-4, 0-3) responded with two runs in the second inning on a Carlos Lopez two-run home run to left field.
The lead was short lived. UVa came right back with six in the third inning, getting the lead right back on a two-run single by Dan Grovatt (So., Tabernacle, N.J.). Two batters later, Cannon doubled to plate two more runs, and he scored on a Hicks triple. John Barr (So., Ivyland, Pa.) followed with an infield single to bring Hicks home and give UVa a 7-2 lead.
The Cavaliers kept pouring it on in the fourth inning, tallying five runs. UVa got run-scoring singles from Proscia and Hicks, but the big blow was a three-run home run to left-center field from Valdes. It was his third long ball of the season.
Wake Forest posted a run in the fourth on Lopez sacrifice fly, but UVa countered with a pair of runs in the fifth, scoring one on a throwing error and the other on a Cannon sacrifice fly.
UVa tacked on four in the sixth inning with two coming on a two-run double by Parker and single runs scoring on a Hultzen single and a Proscia double. In the seventh, Virginia added two more runs, with one scoring on a Phil Gosselin (So., West Chester, Pa.) single and the other on a Jared King (Fr., Radford, Va.) RBI grounder.
The Cavaliers scored their final run in the eighth inning on a Valdes double. Wake Forest put two runs up in the ninth on a two-run double by Dustin Hood.
Virginia returns home to start a 12-game homestand at 4 p.m. Tuesday when it takes on Navy. UVa then will play VMI at 4 p.m. Wednesday in a game rescheduled from last week before No. 6 Florida State comes to Davenport Field for the first time in five years over the weekend.