HOW IT HAPPENED
- In his return to the mound, Johnson only needed 10 pitches to sit down all three Demon Deacon batters that he faced.
- Eric Becker started the home half of the first with a bang as the junior shortstop clobbered the first pitch he saw from Wake Forest’s Blake Morningstar for his fourth home run of the season. The long ball was Becker’s third leadoff homer on the year.
- Behind Becker, the relentless Virginia offense piled on four more runs in the frame, including a two-run double from Harrison Didawick and an RBI single off the bat of Antoino Perrotta.
- Wake Forest got a run back in the top of the second with a solo home run from Luke Costello.
- The Demon Deacons scratched across another run in the top of the fourth when Kade Lewis scored from second on a UVA error.
- In the bottom of the frame, Virginia extended its advantage to 8-2 with a three-run inning highlighted by a Gracia RBI single to right center.
- For his final act of Friday night, Zatkowski loaded the bases full of Demon Deacons with no outs and wiggled out of the jam by only allowing a single run on a sacrifice fly.
- Virginia added its final two runs of the evening in the bottom of the sixth when Joe Tiroly worked a walk with the bases loaded to plate Becker before Gracia came home to score on a Didawick sac fly that made it a 10-3 contest.
- After scoring a pair of runs in the eighth and one in the ninth, Wake Forest had the game-tying run at the plate before Lucas Hartman sealed the 10-6 Virginia victory with a strikeout of Andrew Costello.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- On the season, Virginia is 17-0 when scoring in the first inning and is outscoring opponents 52-13 in the frame.
- Virginia is 10-0 on the year when scoring 10 or more runs and 15-0 when scoring first.
- The UVA pitching staff totaled 12 strikeouts on Friday night, marking the 12th time this season that Virginia has fanned double-digit batters.
- With his leadoff home run, Becker extended his team-best hitting streak to 11 games.
- Over his last two outings, Henry Zatkowski has fanned 17 batters in 12.1 innings of work.
FROM HEAD COACH CHRIS POLLARD
“It was electric. In our postgame chat with the team, I just talked about how fun it was to have him (Johnson) back out there and to see how excited his teammates were for him. I don’t know if you could feel it up in the press box, but our dugout was absolutely electric to have him back on the field. He fed off that and his stuff was really, really good and then what a tremendous performance by Henry Zatkowski. What a great game manager, he pitched around some traffic and had to pitch through traffic on the bases. He isn’t scared of contact. He continues to execute what he does well, knowing that is who he is, and if he does that and repeats it, good things will happen.”
UP NEXT
The ACC series resumes on Saturday (March 21) with the middle game of a three-game set against the Demon Deacons. Virginia will throw lefty Max Stammel (3-0) against Wake Forest’s Chris Levonas (2-0). First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m. and will be carried on ACCNX.
