Wake Forest University
Louisville
#4 Louisville Walks Off to Edge Deacons, 6-5
4/17/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Final Stats | Final Stats (PDF) 
By Jay Garneau, Wake Forest Athletic Communications (@WakeBaseball)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Wake Forest battled against No. 4-ranked Louisville pitch-for-pitch, but the Cardinals used a walkoff single in the bottom of the ninth to hold off the Demon Deacons, 6-5, at Patterson Stadium on Friday night.
It was a tale of two games, with the teams combining for 10 runs over the first three innings, but just one over the next six frames.
Wake Forest's (22-17, 9-10 ACC) bullpen tossed 5.1 scoreless innings before Mike White ended the game with an RBI single.
Corey Ray hit a two-run blast to give Louisville (28-9, 17-2 ACC) a 2-0 first-inning lead, but the Deacons quickly responded.
Wake Forest drew four walks in the second inning, including a run-scoring walk from Drew Freedman. Jonathan Pryor followed with an RBI single to tie the game at 2-2, and Joey Rodriguez drilled a two-run double to make the score 4-2 in favor of the Deacons.
After a leadoff walk and stolen base from White, Will Smith hit an RBI double to cut the margin to 4-3 in the bottom of the second.
The Deacons pushed the lead back to two in the third. Nate Mondou and Justin Yurchak singled, setting up a Stuart Fairchild sacrifice fly to make it 5-3.
The Cardinals knotted it back up at 5-5 in the bottom of the inning. Ray led off with his second homer of the game, then Zach Lucas doubled, stole third and scored on a groundout.
Then, Wake Forest's bullpen and Louisville's Kyle Funkhouser each settled in.
John McCarren, Max Tishman, Donnie Sellers and Parker Dunshee held the Cardinals scoreless from the fourth through eighth innings.
Brendan McKay led off the ninth with a first-pitch single. His pinch-runner, Colin Lyman, advanced on a sac bunt, and scored when he beat the throw home on White's bloop single to left-center.
The Demon Deacons put up five earned runs on Funkhouser, a projected first-round pick, over 7.2 innings.
McCarren led the effort out of the pen by tossing 2.2 innings, allowing one hit and one walk. Sellers struck out a batter without allowing a hit or walk in 1.1 innings.
Dunshee (5-1) took the loss for Wake Forest, while Sean Leland (2-0) earned the win with 1.1 scoreless innings in relief for Louisville.
Game two of the series is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday, and will air on ESPN3.
