UNCG Baseball Faces No. 1 Wake Forest for Tuesday Battle
GREENSBORO, N.C. –The UNC Greensboro (UNCG) baseball team hits the road for its last regular season game on a weekday against No.1 Wake Forest. The Spartans and Demon Deacons will face off on Tuesday, May 9 with a first pitch slated for 6:00 p.m. at David F. Couch Ballpark.
This is the Spartans’ third contest with a ranked opponent this season.
SPARTAN ESSENTIALS
Who: No. 1 Wake Forest
Where: David F. Couch Ballpark | Winston-Salem, N.C.
When: Tuesday, May 8 | 6 PM
Watch (ACCNX) | Live Stats | Tickets
Last Time Out
UNCG won two of three games against Wofford to take the series.
Kennedy Jones hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning for a 3-2 win on Friday.
Freshman Julien Peissel pitched 7.2 innings allowing only two runs and six hits against 28 batters. He struck out a career-best eight batters during Friday’s game.
Zack Budzik hit his third home run of the season, to bring GC Jarman home for a two-run homer for a last-chance scoring opportunity in Saturday’s game.
Jones had his 11th home run of the season, which scored Daniel Cerda for a two-run homer, which extended the Spartans’ advantage to three runs, 5-2 on Sunday.
Scouting the Spartans
The Spartans are 21-26 overall and 8-10 in SoCon play.
UNCG is leading the conference in double plays (47), and double plays per game (1.00).
Nationally, the Spartans are fourth in double plays and double plays per game, 79th in stolen bases (65) and shutouts (2), and 84th in sacrifice flies (22) and stolen bases per game (1.38).
Jones leads the Spartans with a .358 batting average (68-for-190) with 12 doubles, one triple, and 115 total bases.
Jones, Dosi Jonas (.353), Cerda (.301), and Jarman (.301) are the four Spartans batting over .300.
Jonas is leading the conference in slugging percentage (0.745) and is second in runs batted in per game (1.13).
Nationally, Jonas is 38th in slugging percentage, 51st in home runs per game (0.36), and 85th in home runs (14).
On the mound, 10 different Spartans have at least one win with Matt Kemp leading the way with a 4-3 record and one save in 30.0 innings pitched.
Jonas leads the Spartans with 14 home runs, while Jones has hit 11. Caleb Cozart, Mitchell Smith, and Dallas Callahan have hit six each. Rowan Watt and Cerda have hit four home runs each, while Budzik has hit three home runs and Bradley Bott has two.
10 Spartans have double-figure RBI, with Jonas leading the team with 44 of the 267 RBIs.
Three Spartans have double-figures double plays with Jarman being part of 36 of the 47 double plays.
Scouting Wake Forest
The Demon Deacons are 39-7 overall and 18-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
Wake Forest was just recently named the No. 1 team in the country by D1baseball.com, Baseball America, NCBWA, Collegiate Baseball, and USA Today Coaches Poll after winning a series (2-1) against No. 20 Boston College.
The Demon Deacons have won seven of their last nine games.
Nationally, Wake Forest is first in earned run average (2.51), hits allowed per nine innings (6.53), strike-to-walk ratio (4.56), strikeouts per nine innings (12.1), WHIP (1.02), WL pct (0.848). Second in shutouts (7), Walks allowed per nine innings (2.64), and base on balls (313).
Wake Forest is leading the ACC in base on balls, earned run average, hits allowed per nine innings, on-base percentage (0.432), scoring (9.4), shutouts, strikeout-to-walk ratio, strikeouts per nine innings, WHIP, WL pct, walks allowed per nine innings.
Tommy Hawke has a batting average of.379 (69-for-182), with 15 doubles, 25 RBIs, and four home runs.
Nick Kurtz is nationally ranked third in base on balls (1.11), sixth in home runs per game (0.46), 12th in slugging percentage (0.806), 14th in runs per game (1.35), and 18th in on-base percentage (0.517).
Brock Wilken has 61 of the 390 RBIs of the 12 Demon Deacons that have double-digit RBIs.
In his 46.1 innings pitched, Seth Keener leads Wake Forest with a 1.55 ERA, allowing only 27 hits and 11 runs. He has 58 strikeouts.
Keener is third nationally and first in the ACC in earned run average (1.55).
Wilken is second in the ACC and is nationally eighth in base on balls (48), 11th in home runs (20), and runs (62).
With a batting average of .341 Pierce Bennett leads the ACC and 54th nationally in toughest to strikeout (10.0).
Rhett Lowder earned his third ACC Pitcher of the Week this past week and Perfect Game Pitcher of the Week honor on March 27th. Kurtz was also named Player of the Week on April 24th.
Series History
Wake Forest leads the all-time series against UNCG 47-16, winning the game earlier this season. The Demon Deacons also defeated the Spartans twice last season.
Courtesy of Kelly Couse
Strategic Communications Coordinator
UNC Greensboro