Friday, February 28
Winston-Salem, NC
4 p.m.
Wake Forest University
9-1
3
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Princeton
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Princeton
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Wake Forest
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No. 12 Demon Deacons Start Weekend With 3-1 Victory Over Princeton
2/28/2025 8:20:00 PM | Baseball
Wake Forest extended its perfect home record to 9-0 on Friday evening.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Remaining at David F. Couch Ballpark for a third-straight weekend, No. 12 Wake Forest baseball (9-1, 0-0 ACC) hosted Princeton (0-6, 0-0 Ivy League) on Friday evening. The Demon Deacons took control in the seventh inning en route to capturing a 3-1 victory over the Tigers.
The win saw Wake Forest move to 9-0 at home this season. The Deacs have now started 9-0 or better on its field for four straight seasons, dating back to the 2022 campaign.
In his first at-bat of the contest, sophomore Antonio Morales blasted a ball over the right field wall for his first homer of the season. Wake Forest newcomer Jimmy Keenan chipped into the scoring column with a single later on during the seventh to bring home Dalton Wentz. Keenan has now recorded an RBI in back-to-back contests.
Marek Houston upped the Deacs' lead in the seventh with a sacrifice fly, driving in Keenan for an insurance run.
Junior pitcher Luke Schmolke earned his first win as a Demon Deacon with 1.1 innings of no-hit relief. Sophomore Josh Gunther picked up his third save after striking out all three batters he faced in the ninth. In his third start, Logan Lunceford threw for 5.5 innings while totaling nine strikeouts.
The Wake Forest bullpen lowered its season ERA to 1.52 with 76 strikeouts in 47.1 innings of work. Three Deacs combined to hold Princeton hitless over the final 3.1 innings.
HOW IT HAPPENED
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
STAGGERING STATISTIC
FROM COACH WALTER
"Logan Lunceford got us a big strikeout there at the end against the left-handed hitter with one out and a little bit of traffic on base, and then Will Ray came and got us out of that inning. [Luke] Schmolke and [Josh] Gunther were fantastic coming in, so we had a fantastic day on the mound for the Deacs. Offensively, we knew we would have our hands full today with [Sean] Episcope, [Justin] Kim, and [Jacob] Faulkner, who are all very good. We had just enough good situational at-bats there in the seventh inning. [Dalton] Wentz leads off with a hard-hit ball out to third, and then [Matt] Scannell did a great job bunting him over and Jimmy [Keenan] drove him in. We had two good at-bats that grinded out walks with [Javar] Williams and [Antonio] Morales back-to-back, and Marek [Houston] had a sacrifice fly to give us some cushion. We didn't do much offensively, but we knew it was going to be one of those games where runs were going to be hard to come by. We needed to find a way to win, and we did that." - Head Coach Tom Walter
UP NEXT
The Deacs are back in action tomorrow against Maryland. Saturday's game against the Terps is set for 3 p.m. ET and will be streamed on ACC Network Extra.
Follow The Deacs:
GoDeacs.com | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
The win saw Wake Forest move to 9-0 at home this season. The Deacs have now started 9-0 or better on its field for four straight seasons, dating back to the 2022 campaign.
In his first at-bat of the contest, sophomore Antonio Morales blasted a ball over the right field wall for his first homer of the season. Wake Forest newcomer Jimmy Keenan chipped into the scoring column with a single later on during the seventh to bring home Dalton Wentz. Keenan has now recorded an RBI in back-to-back contests.
Marek Houston upped the Deacs' lead in the seventh with a sacrifice fly, driving in Keenan for an insurance run.
Junior pitcher Luke Schmolke earned his first win as a Demon Deacon with 1.1 innings of no-hit relief. Sophomore Josh Gunther picked up his third save after striking out all three batters he faced in the ninth. In his third start, Logan Lunceford threw for 5.5 innings while totaling nine strikeouts.
The Wake Forest bullpen lowered its season ERA to 1.52 with 76 strikeouts in 47.1 innings of work. Three Deacs combined to hold Princeton hitless over the final 3.1 innings.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Princeton grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first.
- Sophomore Antonio Morales quickly tied the game at 1-1 with a solo home run on the second pitch he saw for his first of the 2025 season.
- Starter Logan Lunceford bounced back from giving up his first run of the season with a 1-2-3 top of the second with a pair of strikeouts.
- Lunceford settled in with three-straight scoreless frames, striking out five over the span to keep the game at 1-1 after three and a half innings.
- The Harrah, Okla. native sat the Tigers down in order in the fifth with another pair of strikeouts.
- With two down and two on in the top of the sixth, senior Will Ray got the final out on a comebacker to keep the game knotted at 1-1.
- The Deacs had a pair of runners reach with two outs in the bottom of the sixth on an Ethan Conrad single up the middle and Jack Winnay hit-by-pitch, but were unable to score.
- After a pair of strikeouts from Ray, junior Luke Schmolke recorded the final out of the seventh via the punch-out for the Demon Deacons' 12th strikeout as a staff.
- Wake Forest broke through for two runs in the bottom of the seventh to take a 3-1 lead.
- Freshman Dalton Wentz reached on a Princeton error to open the frame.
- A sac bunt moved Wentz into scoring position, and catcher Jimmy Keenan gave the Deacs the lead with a single through the right side.
- A pair of walks loaded the bases for the Demon Deacons with one out.
- Shortstop Marek Houston lifted a sac fly to left for his 21st RBI of the season to push the lead to two for Wake Forest.
- Schmolke fanned three more batters, all in consecutive fashion, to start the eighth.
- Josh Gunther took the mound for the Deacs for the final inning.
- It didn't take long for the sophomore to strike out Princeton's final three batters, securing the evening victory for the Deacs.
- Gunther has now struck out every batter he's faced in his last three appearances.
- Wake Forest defeated Princeton, 3-1.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
- During the 2022-2024 seasons, Wake Forest totaled 365 home runs which led the ACC and also ranked third nationally during that time and the Deacs are one of just four teams nationally to have 100 or more home runs in each of the last three seasons.
- Wake Forest has started the season with 21 home runs over their first 10 games to rank first in the ACC and tied for second in the nation in the category through three weeks of play.
- The Deacs have also racked up an ACC-leading 102 runs to start the spring campaign.
STAGGERING STATISTIC
- With a clear home-field advantage, Wake has gone 94-17-1 since 2022 at The Couch, including a stellar 34-3 mark on their way to a program-record 54 wins in 2023, 25-7 in 2024 and 9-0 at home to start 2025.
- Wake Forest boasts the nation's longest active home winning streak at 17 games, dating back to the 2024 season.
- The Demon Deacons have now won 65-straight regular season non-conference home games dating back to May 8, 2021, with the last loss coming against in-state foe Elon that season.
FROM COACH WALTER
"Logan Lunceford got us a big strikeout there at the end against the left-handed hitter with one out and a little bit of traffic on base, and then Will Ray came and got us out of that inning. [Luke] Schmolke and [Josh] Gunther were fantastic coming in, so we had a fantastic day on the mound for the Deacs. Offensively, we knew we would have our hands full today with [Sean] Episcope, [Justin] Kim, and [Jacob] Faulkner, who are all very good. We had just enough good situational at-bats there in the seventh inning. [Dalton] Wentz leads off with a hard-hit ball out to third, and then [Matt] Scannell did a great job bunting him over and Jimmy [Keenan] drove him in. We had two good at-bats that grinded out walks with [Javar] Williams and [Antonio] Morales back-to-back, and Marek [Houston] had a sacrifice fly to give us some cushion. We didn't do much offensively, but we knew it was going to be one of those games where runs were going to be hard to come by. We needed to find a way to win, and we did that." - Head Coach Tom Walter
UP NEXT
The Deacs are back in action tomorrow against Maryland. Saturday's game against the Terps is set for 3 p.m. ET and will be streamed on ACC Network Extra.
Follow The Deacs:
GoDeacs.com | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Schmolke, Luke (1-0)
L: Faulkner, Jacob (0-1)
S: Torres, Boston (3)
Batting:
2B: Koonin, Jake 1
RBI: Shapiro, Caden 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Koonin, Jake 1
HBP: Koonin, Jake 1
Batting:
HR: Nicholson, Grant 1
RBI: Nicholson, Grant 1 ; Schaaf, Blake 1 ; Keenan, Jimmy 1
SH: Matt Scannell 1
SF: Schaaf, Blake 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Nicholson, Grant 1 ; Wentz, Dalton 1 ; Keenan, Jimmy 1
SB: Schaaf, Blake 2
HBP: Miller, Jackson 1
Game Leaders
AB
3
R
1
H
1
RBI
1
AB
2
R
0
H
1
RBI
1
AB
4
R
0
H
1
RBI
0
AB
3
R
1
H
1
RBI
1
Players Mentioned
OF
/ Baseball
RHP
/ Baseball
INF
/ BaseballC
/ Baseball
RHP
/ Baseball
UTL
/ Baseball
RHP
/ Baseball
INF
/ Baseball
INF
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