Ad Disclosure
Wake Forest holds on, eliminates Miami (OH) from Knoxville Regional in frightening finish
Published:
Wake Forest made it through a ninth inning that almost ended its season on Saturday afternoon, holding off Miami (Ohio), 14-13, in a wild game at the Knoxville Regional.
The Demon Deacons (37-21) had a seemingly safe 14-9 lead going into the bottom of the ninth, although the crazy score at that point should have told fans in Knoxville to stick around for a potential RedHawks rally. Sure enough, a rally was what broke out, as Wake Forest pitcher Haiden Leffew promptly gave up a 2-run homer to Evan Appelwick that suddenly made it a 14-11 game.
Naturally, Miami wasn’t done. The RedHawks (35-23) kept coming, loading the bases with their next 3 batters on a walk, hit by a pitch, and a single. There was still nobody out, and anything seemed possible in this wild affair with everything on the line.
Leffew finally recorded an out in the inning with a strikeout. Then Logan Lunceford entered the game and things really got nuts, as Lunceford allowed a single that scored 2 runs, with an error on the play just complicating matters. It was 14-13 now, with no margin for error.
With Wake’s season on the line, Lunceford buckled down and retired the next 2 batters on a foul out to third base and a strikeout to put an end to the regional madness. The 14-13 final would seem more likely in the fall with the Demon Deacons football team, but in this case, it was baseball, and it was a victory Wake Forest needed to survive in Knoxville and eliminate Miami.
That’s exactly how the Wake Forest baseball social media account termed the win, with the 1-word headline on its tweet reading: “Survived”.
The Demon Deacons live to play at least another game in Knoxville. Wake Forest will be back in action on Sunday, facing the loser of the Tennessee vs. Cincinnati matchup in an elimination game at 12 pm ET.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
