2017 NCAA Regional: Super Deacs Wake The Community

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.—At 5:30 p.m. Sunday, the man they call “Babe Ruth” was walking from the parking lot to the Wake Forest clubhouse, takeout food from Panera in his hands.

Wake Forest’s 5 p.m. regional final against West Virginia had been delayed until 7 p.m. due to rain, and Stuart Fairchild was hungry.

He wasn’t the only one.

Just across the street from David F. Couch Ballpark, at about the same time, first baseman Gavin Sheets and catcher Ben Breazeale were standing on the patio of a restaurant called Putters, chatting with Wake Forest friends and family. Patrons of the restaurant kept asking, “When’s the game going to start?” to anyone who looked like they might know the answer. A group of West Virginia fans jokingly offered to buy the Wake players pre-game shots of alcohol.

Closer Griffin Roberts ate at Putters earlier in the day, and he remembers two different strangers coming up to him and telling him how excited they were about coming to the game that night. This was all so unusual—that kind of anticipation for Wake Forest baseball in Winston-Salem. Then again, postseason baseball in Winston-Salem is unusual. It hasn’t happened in 15 years.

A few hours later, long after the rain had subsided and the fans had flocked from sports bars back to their seats, Roberts walked off the pitcher’s mound, flung his lefthanded glove in the air, caught leaping catcher Logan Harvey in his arms and was swallowed by the dogpiling Demon Deacons. The fans he had met at Putters were among the 1,213 roaring in the stands. They’d join the dogpile, too, if they could.

It was a victory for Wake Forest. A victory for the community. A victory for Winston-Salem. With a 12-8 win, the Demon Deacons punched their ticket to super regionals for the first time since 1999—just their second super regional trip as a program. And they did it with three straight wins in their home ballpark.

“It’s been just awesome,” Wake Forest head coach Tom Walter said after the win. “You know, it was such a buzz in the stadium all weekend with people tailgating. It’s what’s beautiful about college baseball and quite honestly college athletics in general—just that excitement and living and dying on every pitch. It was just a really special environment.

“Winston-Salem came out in droves this weekend . . . The crowd was a huge part of that game, and they helped us bring that home.”

Feeding off of that energy, the Demon Deacons got on the board early against the Mountaineers, scoring a pair of runs in each of the first two innings against starter B.J. Myers to establish a 4-3 lead.

But it wasn’t until the middle innings when Wake Forest’s patented power bats truly awakened.

Fairchild, Wake Forest’s junior center fielder, is a fairly quiet, reserved personality. Walter jokes his teammates “might pass out” if Fairchild ever said anything to them. But Fairchild stands out nonetheless due to his electric toolset and his lightning-quick bat speed. West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said the Mountaineers called Fairchild “Babe Ruth” all weekend.

On Sunday, Fairchild showed why.

With one out in the fourth inning and the bases loaded, Fairchild drilled a laser of a line drive over the left-field fence for a grand slam. An inning later, he powered a ball just fair over the wall in right field for a two-run homer. In a span of two at-bats, Fairchild set a program record with six RBIs in an NCAA tournament game and almost singlehandedly put the game out of reach.

“They won’t let us put our outfielders outside that fence; if they would let us do that today, that’s where we would play that guy,” Mazey said of Fairchild. “That guy in this ballpark is ridiculously scary. We’re going to watch that kid play in the big leagues as long as he stays healthy. I don’t know his personality. He looks calm, cool, collected, great worker, he plays the game the right way and his skills are unbelievable. That guy’s hard to get out.”

Fairchild’s two home runs, along with a homer by Breazeale, gave Wake Forest an NCAA-leading 100 home runs on the season—the most in the BBCOR era.

Still, while the offense carried most of the burden, the Deacons also needed to get outs against a feisty, gritty West Virginia offense. Starter Donnie Sellers lasted just four innings, allowing six runs, before yielding to righthander Colin Peluse.

Peluse worked three perfect frames before running into trouble in the eighth. With one out in the frame and the bases loaded, the Deacons turned to Griffin, and the electric sophomore carried the torch the rest of the way, throwing mid-90s gas and locking up hitters with a sharp, biting low-80s breaking ball. Of the six outs Griffin recorded, four came via punchout, including the final one.

It was powerful way to end a powerful performance, and a game that represented significant growth in Wake Forest’s program. Within the last two years, Walter has guided the Deacons back to postseason play and back to hosting. Now, they’re back to super regionals for the first time in 18 years. And they could potentially host that super, too, if Bethune-Cookman pulls off another upset against Florida on Monday night.

“(Winning tonight) was a special experience,” Fairchild said. “Coming in as a freshman, not even making the ACC tournament, and then sophomore year, going to a regional for the first time, and then hosting this year, the program has taken incredible strides.”

Beyond the on-field results, those strides are visually apparent in the renovations to the ballpark and, more importantly, in the unmistakable buzz within it and around it. Perhaps more so than ever, Wake Forest baseball has captivated its community.

“I think for me, we expect it,” Roberts said. “The crowds have been showing out this year. And we knew if we were going to host, it was going to be a big deal for us.

“It’s great to see the community come behind us because we never really had that before this year.”

It’s clear that the Deacons have it now—in the ballpark and in the sports bars across the street.