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The record-tying 4 ACC baseball teams that made it to the College World Series in 2024 got a winning start on the road back to Omaha this weekend.
Florida State, North Carolina and NC State opened the season with sweeps while Virginia bounced back from a walk-off extra-inning loss to Michigan at a multi-team event in Puerto Rico by winning the next 2.
In all, 9 of the league’s 16 teams made it through the first weekend undefeated while only one, 11th-ranked Duke, posted a losing record.
Opening week takeaways
The journey to Omaha is a long one with plenty of twists and turns to be negotiated. But you can’t get to the destination until you get started.
So now that the season is off and running, here are a few first impressions from around the ACC:
Reloaded Deacons
Wake Forest lost 6 players to the MLB Draft last summer including first-round picks Nick Kurtz, Seaver King and the bulk of its offensive firepower. But if the opening weekend results are an indication, coach Tom Walter has retooled his lineup with an even more potent collection of bats.
Through their first 4 wins (2 each against LIU and Marist), the Deacons have scored 62 runs, hit .412 and had 6 players hit at least 1 home run.
While the onslaught was led by a holdover – shortstop Marek Houston, who went 10-of-14 with 3 homers, 13 RBIs and 11 runs scored – a bulk of the damage was done by newcomers. Marist transfer Ethan Conrad (8-of-15, 10 RBIs), Butler transfer Kade Lewis (.583) and redshirt freshman Ryan Preisano (4-of-8) also hit for slow-pitch softball batting averages.
The competition was well below what Wake will face as the season progresses, but it’s still a promising start.
Aces are wild
Several of the ACC’s top pitchers showed why over the weekend.
Florida State’s Jamie Arnold backed up his selection as conference Pitcher of the Year by throwing 6 innings of 1-hit shutout ball with 8 strikeouts and no walks in a 6-0 opening day win against James Madison. His performance set the tone for a weekend sweep in which FSU allowed only 2 runs in its first 3 games.
North Carolina’s Jason DeCaro picked up where he left off during his breakout freshman season with 5 strong innings. He also allowed only 1 hit and no runs to go with 5 strikeouts in a 5-1 Tar Heels victory.
Louisville’s Patrick Forbes was also dominant. Although he gave up 2 runs in 5 innings of his opening day outing, he struck out 11 and picked up the victory in a 4-3 upset of No. 7 Texas at the Shriner’s Children’s College Showdown in Arlington, Texas.
High-flying Cardinals
Forbes wasn’t the only Louisville player who enjoyed an encouraging opening weekend.
The Cardinals missed the NCAA Tournament in each of the past 2 seasons. But they served notice that they’re ready to return to ACC contention by going 2-1 in 3 games against ranked opponents. In addition to beating Texas, they also put a 13-1 hurting on No. 12 Arizona while also dropping a 12-3 decision to No. 12 Oklahoma State.
Louisville showed off a deep lineup in a competitive event, held at the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field, with 9 players driving in at least 1 run. Sophomore Zion Rose led the way by going 6-of-13 (.462) while fellow returners Matt Klein and Lucas Moore both batted better than .400 with 2 RBIs each.
Clemson also went 2-1 at the Shriner’s Children’s College Showdown, with a 6-5 win against Oklahoma State and a 16-5 rout of Arizona before getting run-ruled in a 7-inning 15-5 loss to Ole Miss.
Rintaro Sasaki’s debut
No freshman arrived with more advanced hype than Stanford’s Rintaro Sasaki, who became a national phenomenon in his home country by launching 140 home runs at the same high school that produced Shohei Ohtani.
While he didn’t hit any home runs in his much-anticipated debut with the Cardinal, he did come out swinging. The left-handed hitting first baseman had 6 hits in his first 14 college at-bats (.429) with 2 doubles and 8 runs batted in while helping the Cardinal to a 3-game sweep of Cal State-Fullerton.
Vance Honeycutt 2.0?
It would be unfair to ask Kyle Kepley to duplicate the production North Carolina got from Vance Honeycutt, the player he was recruited to replace in center field and at the top of the Tar Heels’ batting order.
And yet, he sure looked like a reasonable facsimile of the Baltimore Orioles’ first-round draft pick in his first weekend wearing Carolina blue.
The transfer from Liberty was UNC’s best hitter in its 3-game sweep of Texas Tech. Not only did he go 5-for-13 with a double, 2 RBIs, 2 runs scored and 2 stolen bases, he also took a page out of Honeycutt’s book defensively by stealing a home run from the Red Raiders’ Kyler Thompson with a leaping catch in center field during Friday’s 5-1 win.
Bedeviled by the Bearcats
It’s a long season, so a disappointing opening weekend is nothing to panic about. Especially in a series against a power conference opponent. Still, losing 2 of 3 to Cincinnati at home isn’t exactly how Duke coach Chris Pollard drew things up for his preseason No. 11-ranked team.
The Blue Devils lost 8-3 on opening night and got hammered 19-5 on a cold rainy Sunday night in a game that saw the Bearcats score at least 1 run in every inning after the top of the first. The only thing that saved them from being swept was a walkoff 12th-inning home run by shortstop Wallace Clark, who went 4-for-5 and drove home 3 of his team’s 6 runs in a 6-5 win Saturday.
Duke is the only ACC team to start the season with a losing record in its opening series.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
