After an eight-month wait, the Wake Forest baseball team finally played in regular-season games in Ponce, Puerto Rico. With all of the excitement from last season building up for a 9:30 a.m. start time against Houston, a wave of disappointment hit the Demon Deacons like a freight train.
Despite starting his outing strong, right-hander Blake Morningstar ran into trouble in the third. While all of his pitches worked in terms of command and velocity, soft contact and poor defense allowed the Cougars to jump in front 4-0 by the end of the inning.
When the fourth inning rolled around, Morningstar looked more fatigued and frustrated, as back-to-back hits knocked the junior out of the ball game. With the rest of the bullpen unable to give the offense a feasible chance to get back in the ballgame, a potential comeback seemed unattainable.
“Disappointing day. Disappointing start to the season,” Head Coach Tom Walter said following Friday’s contest. “It’s not the end of the world, obviously, but we need to pitch the ball better than we did today.”
Even though some members of the starting lineup fared well against the Houston staff, the majority of the group was unable to cash in with runners on. Wake Forest would end up losing their season opener 8-2.
Game two of the Puerto Rico Challenge was a much different story for the Demon Deacons, however. In spite of an excruciatingly long weather delay that pushed their start time to 11:11 p.m., Wake Forest shut down the Washington Huskies in a commanding 5-0 victory.
As the score may dictate, it was the pitching that made the game for the Deacs. Second-year starter Chris Levonas shone in his three-plus innings of work, striking out nine of the 11 batters he faced without allowing a single earned run.
The bullpen was also quite impressive, with Rhys Bowie and Zach Johnston contributing immensely to the Saturday night shutout. Bowie in particular looked like a completely different pitcher from last year, with the southpaw racking up six strikeouts in three innings of work.
In total, the pitching staff combined for a whopping 20 punchouts, the first time a Wake Forest team has done so since 2024. While the offense wasn’t firing on all cylinders, a couple of big hits in the right moments gave the Deacs all they needed to come up with the win.
“Obviously, really happy with our pitching today,” Walter said. “It was good for us to have a closer game and fight all the way to the end. Happy with the way the guys played, and hopefully we can build on it for tomorrow.”
The final game of the weekend was the exclamation point of a successful road trip to Puerto Rico. Thanks to a stellar start from Matthew Dallas and an offensive barrage against Indiana State, their second victory of the season was a stress-free, 10-1 bout.
Arguably, the most notable storyline from this contest came from Duncan Marsten’s performance. Marsten, a sophomore right-hander from California, dominated the Sycamores’ offense with four innings of scoreless baseball. The most telling stat of Marsten’s pitching line, though, was his zero walks.
Following a freshman season in which the highly touted arm had trouble finding the zone, a lengthy outing that included no free passes could be the next step in his development. Because this Wake Forest pitching staff is still very young, a bump into the rotation is not out of the question for Marsten.
Clearly, some good things were happening for Wake Forest this weekend in Puerto Rico. Even with the unfortunate loss to Houston on Friday, a strong turnaround was good enough to provide the Deacs with a winning record heading into next week.
“We’ve got a big game against High Point on Tuesday that we need to be ready for, and we still have good options because of the way we pitched today,” Walter said. “Overall, I’m pleased with the weekend. Disappointed with the result on Friday, but I’m happy with the way the guys responded.”
