Wake Forest’s Once-Promising Season Comes To Disappointing End With Quick NCAA Tournament Exit

Image credit: (Photo by Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)

Wake Forest came into the season as the top-ranked team in the country, fresh off an ACC title and its first College World Series appearance since 1955. The Demon Deacons had a star-studded roster, featuring five players with legitimate first-round aspirations this year. It was easy to dream of another special season ending in Omaha.

Instead, Wake’s season came to an end Saturday in the Greenville Regional. The Demon Deacons lost, 7-6, to East Carolina in walk-off fashion. Their loss meant Wake is the second Preseason No. 1 team not to win a regional–or reach the CWS–in the last decade, joining 2021 Florida.

“It’s a disappointing end of the season, but we’re proud of this team and our guys,” coach Tom Walter said.

The season started with immense promise for Wake. First baseman Nick Kurtz was one of the favorites to be drafted first overall. Seaver King, a Division II transfer who spent the summer with USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team, added dynamism to the lineup that also returned shortstop Marek Houston. On the mound, its rotation of righthanders Josh Hartle, Chase Burns and Michael Massey was expected to be the best in the nation, with veteran Cole Roland ready to take over at the back of the bullpen.

Wake had more star power than any team in the nation. It would need to find some role players to step up, especially with the loss of all-time program greats like Rhett Lowder and Brock Wilken to the draft, but there was every reason to believe that Wake had the pure talent to make another run. Not only did every media poll rate the Deacs No. 1 in the preseason, but they were also voted as the ACC favorites in the conference’s coaches poll. They won in a landslide, getting 10 of the 14 votes.

The preseason projections never really came together for Wake, however. There were early injuries – Cole Roland was out to start the season and both Houston and Kurtz missed time in the first half. There were players who struggled to live up to the hype or their new roles.

After starting the season 11-1, Wake lost three of its first four ACC series and was 17-10 at the end of March after getting swept at home by North Carolina. The Deacs rebounded from there and ran off a nine-game winning streak, including a sweep of Clemson, at the start of May, briefly reentering the hosting race. But a sweep to end the regular season at NC State and a loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament semifinals dashed those hopes and the selection committee sent Wake to Greenville as the No. 2 seed.

The draw in Greenville–host East Carolina, No. 3 seed VCU, No. 4 seed Evansville–looked promising for Wake. But its bats were silenced on Friday night by VCU’s Christian Gordon and Brian Curley, who combined for a three-hit shutout. That dropped Wake into the loser’s bracket where it unluckily met ECU and its All-American ace Trey Yesavage. Wake countered with Burns, its own All-American ace, but Yesavage outdueled him. Burns had perhaps his “worst” start of the year, giving up four runs on five hits in five innings. Yesavage, meanwhile, furthered the Deacs’ offensive misery, holding them to one run on one hit in seven innings.

After Yesavage exited the game after throwing 112 pitches in 7.1 innings, Wake’s bats finally awoke for the first time all weekend. They plated five runs in the top of the ninth inning, storming back from a 4-1 deficit. But Massey couldn’t close out the 6-4 lead. ECU opened the ninth with four straight hits, followed by a hit batter to tie the game. Roland took over, got the first out of the inning, but then gave up the walk-off hit through a drawn in infield.

“Out of 18 innings of baseball, we only have one good offensive inning and that’s just not good enough,” Walter said. “Our bats went cold at the wrong time. For the most part, we pitched pretty well.”

Wake’s season, suddenly, was over. A year that started with so much promise ended with a 38-22 record, an eighth-place finish in the ACC and an 0-2 showing in the NCAA Tournament. The Deacs will still clean up on draft day–Burns, Kurtz and King are all still expected to be selected in the top half of the first round. But that will be little consolation for a disappointing ending to the season.

That Wake is even in a position to be disappointed in a quick NCAA Tournament exit is an accomplishment itself. The Deacs had never before had such a hyped season and made a third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since they made five straight from 1998-2002.

“I’m proud of our ballclub,” Walters said. “I just want to thank our seniors and our guys that are going to be drafted for all they gave to our program. The past couple of years in the program have been truly special because of guys like Nick Kurtz and his group. I’m just really proud of them.”

But now Wake must reset much of its roster. Its rotation will have a completely new look in 2025. At least five of the players in Saturday’s starting lineup will have to be replaced. By Opening Day next year the roster will have almost completely turned over from the 2023 CWS.

That’s a reality of college baseball, particularly now that the extra year of eligibility given to players after the cancellation of the 2020 season has washed out of the system. Wake Forest has proven it can attract high-end talent through the transfer portal. Now, it must show it can rebuild on the fly.