The Demon Deacons (26-4, 10-2) looked to continue their winning ways on Tuesday against Elon (20-9, 10-2); however, they came up short on a rather tough night, losing 5-3. 

Wake Forest was on the road at Latham Park in Elon, N.C. with Reed Mascolo (5-1) on the mound. Joe Sprake was Elon’s starting pitcher. 

The Demon Deacons got off to a rapid start in this game, scoring all three of their runs for the entire game in the first inning. Brock Wilken got the bats started for Wake Forest with an RBI double down the left-field line, scoring Lucas Costello. Following up was Pierce Bennett, who earned himself an RBI with a groundout to the shortstop, allowing Danny Corona to punch in a run, and immediately after, Wilken scored off an Elon throwing error, making it a 3-0 lead for the Demon Deacons. 

Elon responded in the fourth inning with a solo home run from Tanner Holliman. The Phoenix took over in the fifth inning, scoring two more runs to tie the game at two. As a result, Mascolo was pulled from the game for Derek Crum, and he finished his evening with four innings pitched, seven hits allowed and five strikeouts. Crum quickly faced trouble as Elon scored twice on two RBI singles, giving Elon a 5-3 lead that would hold for the remainder of the game. 

Even though the start of this game was seeming to be a dominant Demon Deacon performance, Wake Forest slowed down offensively in the later parts of the night and was unable to string together solid at-bats to give themselves a chance at winning the ballgame. What looked to be a promising win ended in an unfortunate loss for the Demon Deacons as they now look toward an important three-game series against in-conference NC State which will begin tomorrow, April 7, at David F. Couch Ballpark. The series was initially slated to begin Friday, but the game was postponed due to poor weather.

Correction April 10: An earlier version of this story contained a misspelling in the headline. This has been corrected.