Notre Dame Baseball Loses to Wake Forest in ACC Tournament

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish baseball team finished their ACC Tournament stay against the national #1 ranked Wake Forest Demon Deacons. With Wake Forest already advanced to the semifinals, Notre Dame was fighting possibly for their NCAA Tournament hopes. They put up a strong effort but Wake proved too much, using a big inning and late insurance to win the game.

Notre Dame 5 (30-24) - Wake Forest 7 (47-9)

Win: Derek Crum, WF (1-0)

Loss: Jackson Dennies, ND (0-4)

Save: Cole Roland, WF (2)

Wake Forest took the early lead, scoring a run in each of the first two innings. They went into the third holding a 2-0 lead before Notre Dame was able to get on the board. When Notre Dame did finally score they strung together several innings of runs and took the lead. In the third inning Estevan Moreno doubled home the first Irish run of the game.

In the fourth inning Notre Dame scored twice more to take the lead, both runs coming on a double from DM Jefferson. In the fifth inning Zack Prajzner drove in another one with another double. The lead would be short lived though, as Wake Forest scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to take a 5-4 lead. Wake added an insurance run in the seventh inning before and in the eighth inning an RBI single from Casey Kmet brought Notre Dame back within one. Wake Forest added one more in the bottom of the eighth and the Irish couldn’t rally in the final inning and lost the game 7-5.

Up Next

Notre Dame now waits to hear whether or not they are in the NCAA Tournament. They are right on the bubble, as earlier in the week D1Baseball had them projected as one of the last four teams in. After their loss to Pittsburgh they were the first team out in projections. The Irish are right on the bubble and with automatic bids still to be clinched they’ll be rooting for as little chaos as possible. The selection show takes place on Monday at noon ET.