Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Forest Hosts Maryland in ACC Baseball Series
3/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 14, 2008
Complete Release in PDF Format
Wake Forest and Maryland will begin a three-game ACC baseball series Friday afternoon at Wake's Hooks Stadium. The Deacons enter the series 9-5 overall and 2-1 in the ACC while the Terps are 7-7 overall and 0-3 in league play.
Wake has won two straight games and five of its last six after non-conference victories over High Point on March 11 and Charlotte on March 12. The win over Charlotte saw the Deacs erase a 10-1 deficit and charge from behind to take a 15-12 win.
Maryland swept a mid-week series from Delaware to even its overall record on the year. The Terps dropped all three games of its ACC-opening series at Florida State last weekend.
Last weekend, Wake Forest took two of three games from 17th-ranked Clemson, thus earning the Deacons a handful of votes in this week's USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll. Wake received six votes, good for 46th place.
Wake Forest will send senior Ben Hunter to the mound on Friday. Hunter (1-1, 5.62) will be making his first career start vs. Maryland. Primarily a reliever over the 2006 and 2007 seasons, he has pitched seven career innings vs. the Terps and is yet to allow a base hit.
Junior lefty Garrett Bullock (2-0, 3.12) will go for the Deacons on Saturday. Bullock has won his last two starts including a 5-3 win over Clemson last Saturday.
Senior Charlie Mellies (0-2, 6.23) will get the call on Sunday. Mellies made his first appearance of the 2007 season against Maryland after having been sidelined for a year due to elbow surgery.
Offensively, the Deacons hit at a .397 clip in their two non-conference wins this week, a 12-3 win over High Point and the 15-12 decision over Charlotte. Evan Ocheltree is riding an eight-game hitting streak and the Deacons are 8-3 since his insertion into the starting line-up at first base. Dustin Hood owns a seven-game hitting streak in which he is hitting .467. Andy Goff is coming off his second four-hit game of the year against Charlotte and is the team's leading hitter with a .392 average. Allan Dykstra, who moved to third base in order to accommodate Ocheltree's return to first, is hitting .375 and leads the club with five home runs. Dykstra is the ACC leader in runs scored (23), walks (20) and on-base percentage (.577). Leftfielder Brett Linnenkohl is hitting .333 and leads the ACC with 15 stolen bases while ranking third in walks with 18.
The series starts on Friday at 3:00 at Hooks Stadium and continues with 1:00 games on Saturday and Sunday.
