2023 Wake Forest Baseball Top Moment: Rake Forest

Tommy Hawke hit a 2nd inning home run in the Deacs' victory:

On June 11th, Wake Forest took on Alabama looking to advance to the College World Series for the first time since 1955. Josh Hartle was on the mound in front of a ruckus crowd of Demon Deacon fans.

With Wake Forest serving as the away team, Tommy Hawke got the party started with a double down the right field line. Just two batters later, future first rounder Nick Kurtz launched a ball over the parking lot past the right field fence to give the Deacs an early 2-0 lead. Brock Wilken followed that up with a moonshot of his own over the makeshift pavilion beyond left field. After Hartle surrendered two runs in the bottom of the first, Bennett Lee worked a walk, which led to Tommy Hawke blistering a home run just inside the right field foul pole to extend the Wake lead to 5-2. In the top of the third, Wilken launched his second long ball of the afternoon, pulling him within one of being the ACC all-time home run leader. After a Justin Johnson single, Alabama pulled their starter. And after a Pierce Bennett walk, Danny Corona hit one over the right-center field fence to push the lead to 9-3. The next batter, Lee, followed up with another home run. It was the second time in 4 innings that the Deacs had gone back to back. In the top of the sixth, a Lucas Costello hit, intentional walk, and hit by pitch led to a two-run single by Bennett. Fast forward to the eighth inning, where freshman Marek Houston stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded. He launched one into the pavilion in left for a grand slam and to extend the lead to 18-5. In the top of the ninth, Wilken hit his third home run of the game, making him the all-time home run leader in ACC history with 70 (he would go on to add one more in the CWS). Corona hit his second three run home run of the day later in the inning to push the lead to 22-5, which ended up being the final score after Minacci locked the game down in the bottom of the ninth.

The home run barrage was good enough for a tie for first place in the NCAA Tournament record books. It also lead to the second ever time a team had entered the CWS with four 10+ run victories in the tournament. Wake Forest also set the record for run differential entering the CWS at +59. Josh Hartle tied Lowder for single-season strikeouts with his performance on the mound.