No. 11 Deacs even series despite Clemson's furious rally

Jacob Jarrell tallied three hits and almost hit a game-tying HR against the wind (Clemson athletics photo).

Brandon Rink - Assoc. Editor / Staff Writer - Saturday, March 22 2025

CLEMSON - Some shifting winds weren’t working in No. 4 Clemson’s favor in an offense-fueled day and 12-10 win for the visiting No. 11 Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Wake (19-5, 7-1) evened the series with 15 hits and held the Tigers (22-3, 3-2 ACC) off despite three errors and six pitchers inserted total.

The Tigers, in front of 5,233 in attendance at Doug Kingsmore Stadium Saturday, dropped to 17-2 at home this season, but those two losses have each come in the last week to ACC foes.

The ACC’s most prolific power-hitting team struck early, but it was not without some help from the Clemson defense.

The first Wake Forest home run needed no defensive assistance other than a friendly 1-1 pitch from Tigers starter Ethan Darden (3-1) that Marek Houston took to left-center field for his ninth homer of the season.

The infield woes began in the second inning with a bad rundown throw to second base from first baseman Luke Gaffney preceding a Matt Scannell two-out RBI single to right field.

In the third, a failed fielder’s choice throw to second from third baseman Josh Paino preceded a muffed fielding attempt on a groundball after that to load the bases. Wake’s Javar Williams proceeded to rifle an RBI single to right field, and Jimmy Keenan dealt the first big blow with a grand slam to left field.

With Darden chased, two out and one on, another single and a second Kade Lewis bomb of the weekend made it 10-0 Wake Forest.

"I don't know how many teams in the country can come back from being down 10-0, but I know we're one of them," Erik Bakich said postgame. "Then we had the winning run on-base in the ninth inning -- not that there's a moral victory there somewhere, but it shows our toughness and fight and the ability to not get down and find a way and still be extremely competitive. Some of the highest levels of compete I've seen from our guys.

"I'm very proud of how they fought."

Wake left-hander Matthew Dallas cruised through the first two innings, but he didn’t survive the third.

Clemson loaded up the bags with one out and Dallas hit Jarren Purify to bring in the first Tiger run. Cam Cannarella’s hard grounder preceded a throwing error to second base that scored two more Clemson runners, and after a third walk of the inning, Dallas’ day was done. The only further damage on right-handed reliever Luke Schmolke (3-0) was a Gaffney deep sacrifice fly to center field to bring another run in and cut the deficit to six runs.

The Tiger bats struck again for another 4-run frame in the fifth, with run-scoring contact for Gaffney (single), Paino (fielder’s choice), Jacob Jarrell (a second double in as many innings) and Andrew Ciufo (single).

Clemson’s unanswered-scoring run came to a close in the top of the sixth after Nathan Dvorsky gave up a pair of walks to lead off the inning, and down to two outs and two strikes, Austin Hawke’s high flyball off of Reed Garris tailed away from the right fielder McCladdie’s dive – and he couldn’t come up with the catch for two Deacs to score.

The Tigers were back at it in the bottom half of the inning, with Purify and Gaffney scoring to bring out a fourth Wake Forest pitcher of the day. With a runner on and two out, Jarrell didn’t the get the benefit of the shifting winds as the Demon Deacons’ center fielder Williams caught the ball just over the wall.

"It (the wind) definitely played a role. Collin Priest hit one 111 (MPH) at 25 degrees of launch -- and don't know what Baseball Savant would say about that, but the batting average on that is probably 1.000," Bakich said with a wry smile. "He hit it and the center fielder went back to the fence and then had to go dive in because the wind was gusting. That was very much an outlier situation. Jacob Jarrell hit one same thing and it got knocked down and Williams made a hell of a catch robbing a home run jumping over the fence bringing it back...

"That's just the way it goes sometimes. You can't control the wind. If you could, you'd have it blow out when we hit and blow in when we pitch...It is what it is. We impacted the ball really, really well today."

Two on and two out facing Wake’s fifth pitcher of the day, Cannarella came up in the seventh seeking his first hit of the series, but he grounded out weakly to first base to end the Tigers’ threat.

Jarrell looked to continue his big day in the eighth with a runner on third and two out, facing a sixth Wake pitcher of the day, but he struck out swinging. That brought the Tigers to 3-of-14 hitting with runners in scoring position and 2-of-11 hitting with two out.

With two out in the ninth, Cannarella walked to load the bases for Priest, who popped out to third to end the game and worsen the RISP number.

Wake's Josh Gunther recorded a fourth save of the season.

Jarrell finished with a three-hit day.

The series wraps up with an ACC Network-televised 3 p.m. start Sunday.

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