Wake Forest baseball wins 2024 NAC-6 tournament championship

On Friday, May 3, NAC-6 regular season champions Wake Forest High School hosted Wakefield in the conference tournament championship.

This came as the third matchup between the two teams of the season, with the Wake Forest Cougars taking the first two.

Wake Forest took the win 13-7, crowning them as conference tournament champions.

“The guys have done a great job this season,” Wake Forest head coach Carlos Varela said. “We won the regular season, we won the spring break tournament and now we’ve won this one. But at the end of the day, what I like the most is that we’re all healthy, the guys are growing not just as baseball players but as grown men, and at the end of the day that’s what we’re here for.”

Coming out hot

Wakefield came out of the gates ready to play. Wolverine catcher Holden Cooper started the scoring early with a two-RBI double in the second to give Wakefield a 2-0 lead. Two batters later, following a Davis Watson sacrifice bunt to advance Cooper, Samuel Bretherick hit a one-out hopper to third, allowing Cooper to come home.

Wakefield finished with three runs and four hits in the opening frame.

Wake Forest wouldn’t go down without a fight. Despite Wakefield striking out Cougar batters in two of the first four at-bats for Wake Forest, the Cougars quickly turned the tide. The Cougars ended up putting up seven runs and seven hits in the bottom of the first, going into the second by four despite being down three after the first.

Wake Forest extends its lead

After Wakefield failed to score in the top of the second, Ethan Brittain led off the bottom of the inning with a solo homer over the center field wall. Wakefield responded with a home run in the next frame off the bat of Holden Cooper to cut the deficit back to four.

Wake Forest caught fire again in the bottom of the third, putting up five more runs. However, this was not a reflection of the first half. In the first inning, Wake Forest’s seven runs came on seven hits, but in the third the five runs were on two hits. This highlights the pitching struggle Wakefield has faced despite two pitching changes.

A quiet series

The fourth and fifth innings saw little action, with only James Bradbury managing a hit in the bottom of the fifth, but the other three hitters were 1-2-3.

A late push

Wakefield started to fight back in the top of the sixth, scoring two runs, their first multi-run frame since the opening frame. The first run came from Cam McDaniel, who stole home on a bad throw, then Stephen Crater hit an RBI single to send Trevor Friend home.

After holding the Cougars to just one hit in the next frame, Wakefield rallied to within seven with one last chance to overcome the deficit.

Following a flyout by the Wolverines, Luke Blackburn hit a home run to cut the deficit to six. Wakefield, however, had two straight outs in his next two at-bats, sealing the Cougar victory.

“We came here to fight,” Varela said. “Wakefield are a great team, they always fight against us. They came ready to play, they hit really well. Guys just came in and when we get slapped, we act by slapping ourselves back, making sure we do our job.”

Key players

Wake Forest’s Mark Murray and Kennen Rodgers had two RBIs on the day, leading the team in both.

Four Cougars had two runs in the game, with those coming as Bradbury, Kyle Brazeau, Luke Taibi and Brittain.

“Ethan Brittain,” Varela said when asked which player impressed him in the game. “He hit the ball really well for us today and is a machine in the field when it comes to the authority he serves.

Varela also highlighted the defensive prowess of the court, greatly impacting the results of the game.

“My pitch, the three, they’re extremely strong defensively, and whatever gets hit there, they make sure they give us a better chance to bring it up so we can get back to hitting,” Varela said.

Holden Cooper played a significant part of Wakefield’s offensive efforts, plating three of six RBIs and adding two hits, two runs and a home run. Bretherick also looked good at the plate, pitching two hits for two RBIs.

“The job is not over”

Despite having just won the conference tournament championship and adding to the regular-season conference title, the Cougars did little in the way of celebration, and Wake Forest head coach Varela had the team run drills immediately after the win, highlighting their focus on the upcoming tournament.

“The work is not done. It was very nice, it was one of our goals to be able to (win the tournament) but our season is not over, the job is not done,” said Varela. “We are professionals. We don’t grieve our defeats and we don’t get to exaggerate our victories. It’s not a sprint for us, it’s a marathon for us. At the end of the day, Wakefield came and fought and we show a lot of respect to a team that comes into our house and does what they did.”

The first pitch guest

Throwing out the first pitch of the game was Ben Castor. Ben is battling cancer and recovering from devastating brain surgery that took away the function of the right side of his body two years ago.

“He was nervous to come out, but really excited to do it,” said Jess Castor, Benjamin’s father. “After that we got a hot dog and he asked us if he could do it again.”

It follows

As Wakefield’s season draws to a close, Wake Forest will prepare for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association baseball tournament. Dates and opponents have yet to be announced.

“We’re very familiar with him,” Varela said. “Last year we were lucky enough to be able to be there and compete really well. We’ll just take it one step at a time, come back and practice tomorrow and make sure all the little things we had to fix today are fixed.”