6/1/2002 - Baseball
Wake Forest Ends Navy's NCAA Baseball Tournament Run
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Freshman Tim Morley hurled a complete game six hitter, while Jamie D'Antona drove in four runs as the fourth ranked Wake Forest Demon Deacons (46-12-1) ended the Navy (23-25) baseball teams NCAA Tournament run with a 13-1 victory Saturday night at Ernie Shore Field. The Demon Deacons advance to the regional title game tomorrow afternoon against the Richmond Spiders. Wake Forest needs to beat Richmond twice to win the regional.
"Morley was awesome tonight," said Navy head coach Steve Whitmyer. "He may have given Wake Forest the jolt they needed. I was real impressed with both Richmond and Wake Forest, this is probably the best team in Wake's history. It should be an epic battle tomorrow."
Navy starter Andy Froistad (5-2) retired the first two batters of the game, but then gave up a double to Ryan Johnson and a home run to D'Antona.
"That may be a fault that I have, it takes a lot for me to back down and not challenge a batter," said Whitmyer. "We had a base open, but decided to pitch to D'Antona and he made us pay."
Wake put the game away with five runs in the third and three more in the fourth. Navy had once chance for a big inning against Morley as Pete Curnow reached on a one out walk in the third and John Cocca was awarded first base on catchers interference. Chris Ashinhurst followed with an RBI single, scoring Curnow to make the score 7-1. Cocca and Ashinhurst then pulled off a double steal to put runners on second and third. Craig Candeto then hit a rocket right at first baseman Jeff Ruziecki, who caught the line drive and then doubled Ashinhurst off second to end the inning.
The Navy bullpen pitched well outside of Ryan Naquin, who gave up three runs in 2/3 of an inning. The combination of Steve Goocey, Brian Pennell, Jake Miller and Bryan Koehler allowed just one earned run over the final 5 1/3 innings.
Despite the loss, Navy will go home tomorrow with its head held high as the Mids became the first Navy baseball team in 20 years to win an NCAA Tournament game with this afternoons 6-4 victory over George Washington.
"It all really started clicking for us at the end of the year," said Whitmyer. "Our coaching staff kept harping on the guys to get better and play better as the year goes on and just see what happens. We didn't really have any expectations, it was just that we wanted to feel that we could go out there and compete if our pitching kept us in the game. That was really our story this weekend. The two games we got beat our starting pitching didn't do it for us. The game we won, our starting pitcher basically won the game for us."
