Sports > March 29, 2007

By Gerard McMahon

Staff writer

The Demon Deacons continued stumbling through a brutal early conference schedule, as they took only one out of three against North Carolina State to drop their conference record to 3-6 before falling 15-9 to Winthrop March 28 to drop their record to 14-13.

“The ACC is one of the toughest conferences in the nation,” said sophomore first baseman and ACC home run leader Allan Dykstra .“We’ve played three great teams, so we don’t feel like we’re out of it at all. We just need to come back and get our offense going, and we’ll be fine.” After taking an early two-run lead against the Wolfpack on March 23, N.C. State came back to tie the game at three before junior left fielder Brett Linnenkohl gave the Deacs a narrow 4-3 lead heading into the ninth inning on his fourth home run of the season.

Linnenkohl, Dykstra and junior outfielder Ben Terry paced the Deacon offense with two hits each.

But the Wolfpack capitalized on a Wake Forest fielding error to tie the game in the ninth before netting a pair of runs in the 10th inning to take home the 6-4 victory.

Sophomore Brad Kledzik took a no decision in the game after allowing only a pair of runs in 5.1 innings, while senior closer Josh Ellis saw his record fall to 2-1 after blowing his first save of the season.

“We’ve had a lot of trouble getting our pitching and hitting both working at the sam time,” said junior shortstop Dustin Hood.

Losing a heartbreaker a day earlier and trailing 2-1 halfway through the second game against one of the best pitchers in the ACC, the Demon Deacons could have easily thrown in the towel and focused on the final game of the series.

Instead, the first seven batters in the bottom of the fifth all reached base and scored as the Deacs notched eight runs in the fifth inning and five more in the sixth to propel them to a 16-3 thrashing. Sophomore Garrett Bullock improved to 2-1 after allowing only a pair of runs in 5.2 innings, but the offense was the story of the day.

Dykstra reached base five times and tallied a career-high six RBIs, including his league-leading 10th home run of the year. All but two Wake Forest starters collected at least two hits, including sophomore right fielder Evan Ocheltree, who picked up three hits and knocked his fifth home run of the year.

The Deacs could not, however, carry this offensive momentum into the March 25 game, as they managed only three hits through the first seven innings before succumbing to a 3-2 defeat. Junior Eric Niesen suffered the tough-luck loss to drop his record to 2-3 on the year after allowing two runs and striking out eight in six innings.

Down 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Wake mounted a comeback in both the eighth and the ninth innings that fell one hit short of tying the game. With two outs and runners on first and second, redshirt junior center fielder Eric Williams singled home a run and advanced to second on the throw home to put two runners in scoring position with the Deacs down only one. A groundout, however, ended the threat. Again in the ninth, Wake Forest had two runners on with two outs, but a groundout to second ended the ballgame.

“We were hoping for just a little more of that Hooks magic,” Dykstra said, “but we need to learn from these losses. We need to learn that we can’t rely on the late innings every time — we need to come out ready to play.”

The Deacons woes continued March 28, as a 10-run fifth inning propelled the Winthrop Eagles to a 15-9 victory over the Deacs.

A pair of Dykstra home runs, his 11th and 12th, and sophomore Tyler Smith’s second home run of the year was not enough for the offense to make up for the disastrous fifth inning. “Our goal is still to make it to NCAA regionals,” Hood said. “We need to come out much more focused in these midweek games, but now we have to keep looking forward.”

Wake Forest hits the field again March 30-April 1, as they travel to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina before traveling to Elon April 3.