Notre Dame Baseball: Irish Take Two From Wake Forest

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish baseball team continued their ACC schedule this weekend at home with three games against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. With stellar pitching on Friday and a walk-off win in extra innings on Saturday, Notre Dame took the series from Wake Forest and earned their first home wins of the season.

Game 1: Notre Dame 5 (9-11, 3-4) - Wake Forest 2 (10-12, 4-3)

Notre Dame opened the scoring early in this one and when they were done, it would be all they would need. With one out in the first inning, back-to-back singles by Jake Johnson and Nick Podkul put two runners on base for the Irish. Back-to-back RBIs by Matt Vierling and Daniel Jung gave the Irish a 3-0 lead.

In the top of the second, a bases loaded sacrifice fly off the bat of Logan Harvey cut the Irish lead to 3-1, but that was all Scott Tully would allow in his 6.2 IP.

In the seventh inning, Notre Dame extended its lead when a single off the bat of Nick Podkul scored Jake Johnson from second.

Notre Dame struck again an inning later in the eighth. Daniel Jung led off the inning with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch before an Eric Gilgenbach sacrifice fly brought him home.

Wake Forest added another run in the top of the ninth but it wasn’t enough, as Notre Dame held on for the 5-2 win. Tully’s 6.2 innings earned him his second straight quality start and Cole Kmet threw 0.2 innings in the ninth to earn his third save of the season.

W: Scott Tully, ND (3-1)

L: Griffin Roberts, WF (2-3)

S: Cole Kmet, ND (3)

Game 2: Notre Dame 7 (10-11, 4-4) - Wake Forest 6 (10-13, 4-4)

Wake Forest opened the scoring early with an RBI single off Irish starter Tommy Sheehan. They added three more in the fourth inning. With a runner on, Shane Muntz homered to make it a 3-0 game and a Christian Long single gave the Demon Deacons a 4-0 lead.

Notre Dame finally reached the scoreboard in the fifth inning. Alex Kerschner led off the inning with a double before Eric Gilgenbach and Cole Daily both walked to load the bases. A two run single off the bat of Jake Johnson cut the deficit in half.

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The Irish loaded the bases again in the sixth before a Cole Daily infield single drove in another run and made it a 4-3 game.

In the eighth Wake Forest stretched to a 6-3 lead with RBI singles from Bobby Seymour and Shane Muntz before Notre Dame tied the game in the bottom half of the inning. Jake Johnson came to bat with the bases loaded again for the Irish, and this time he tripled in all three runs.

After a scoreless ninth inning the game went into extras. The game came to an end in the bottom of the tenth when Daniel Jung drew a walk-off walk to give the Irish the 7-6 victory.

W: Tommy Vail, ND (3-2)

L: Rayne Supple, WF (2-1)

Game 3: Wake Forest 9 (11-13, 5-4) - Notre Dame 3 (10-12, 4-5)

Wake Forest opened the scoring early again on Sunday. With two runners on Bobby Seymour double for a 2-0 lead. Wake Forest loaded the bases in the second inning before Notre Dame starter Cameron Junker walked two and made it a 4-0 game. Wake Forest added two more runs in the fourth to take a 6-0 advantage.

Notre Dame finally scored in the fourth inning when Niko Kavadas drove in Eric Gilgenbach with an RBI double. Wake Forest continued their big day with runs in each of the sixth, eighth, and ninth innings and took a 9-1 lead.

Notre Dame scored two in the ninth on an Alex Kerschner double and Jake Johnson HBP, but it was too little too late and Wake Forest held on for the 9-3 win to avoid the sweep.

W: Colin Peluse, WF (4-0)

L: Cameron Junker, ND (0-2)

Up Next

Notre Dame takes on the Kent State Golden Flashes for a two game midweek series this week before traveling to North Carolina for a weekend series with the Duke Blue Devils.