MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Regional 2-seed Wake Forest (39-20) scored runs in four straight middle innings and defeated Binghamton baseball (31-22) 12-3 in the NCAA Morgantown Regional Saturday afternoon at Kendrick Family Ballpark.
With the loss, the Bearcats' championship season comes to an end, but not before the program won a school-record 31 games, reached the NCAAs for the third time in the last five years and did it with a young lineup that featured six starting sophomores.
The Bearcats played the final five innings near-even with the ACC kingpin Demon Deacons, being outscored just 4-3.
Wake Forest took advantage of two infield miscues to score twice in the second inning. Freshman
Mason Holloway limited the damage with a pair of strikeouts. Sophomore right fielder
Braylen Gonzalez made a long run and sliding catch to end the frame and strand two runners.
Wake Forest batted around and broke it open with five runs in the fourth inning. The Demon Deacons added two runs in the fifth and single runs in the eighth and ninth.
Junior
Zach Anderson sparked a three-run fifth for the Bearcats with a leadoff home run. Anderson jumped on the first pitch and sent it 392 feet over the wall in left field for his seventh home run of the season. He became the seventh Bearcat to hit a home run at an NCAA Regional, joining Joe Charron (2), Henry Dunn, Corey Taylor, Peter Bregartner, Nick Roselli (2) and
Devan Bade (2).
Senior shortstop
Mike Stellrecht followed with a ground rule double to right center. After a walk to sophomore third baseman
Tim Hennig, Gonzalez singled and sophomore second baseman
Sean Sweeney then brought home another run with a grounder. Two batters later, sophomore catcher
Tommy Popoff plated a third run with a sacrifice fly to the warning track in right center.
In the sixth, Binghamton loaded the bases with three straight hits to chase the Wake Forest starter. But a strikeout and double play ended the threat. Wake Forest turned three double plays to aid its cause.
In his final collegiate game, Stellrecht collected three hits. Kraus and Anderson added two hits apiece. The 6-7-8 hitters in the lineup accounted for seven of the team's nine hits.
Holloway worked 3.1 innings and junior
Hayden Tarsia (1.0), junior
Brady Bouchard (3.2) and sophomore
Aiden Milburn (1 IP) closed out the remaining innings. Bouchard allowed just one hit and one run with three strikeouts in a strong outing.
