WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The best regular season in Wake Forest baseball history can be traced back to a weekend retreat at an estate owned by the father of a former North Carolina basketball player. Or was it a crowded Panera Bread outside of Atlanta?
Either way, those seemingly unrelated events — plus an extremely talented roster — are integral parts of the formula that has the Demon Deacons ranked No. 1 in the nation heading into the ACC Tournament in Durham, N.C., this week.
Next Monday, Wake Forest likely will be awarded the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and begin its postseason run by hosting the Winston-Salem Regional at David F. Couch Ballpark. This is quite a leap for a program that didn’t even qualify for the ACC Tournament two years ago.
“I think it’s going to mean everything to us,” All-America third baseman Brock Wilken said. “For the guys that have been there when it was at the absolute floor, and now it’s at the absolute ceiling. I think it just means that much more to each guy. We’ve been through everything — blood, sweat and tears have been put into this. For this to finally come, it’s really, really awesome and surreal to see.”
Bill Cilento was looking to grab a quick bite during a rain delay while on a recruiting trip in Atlanta in the summer of 2019. His first choice was Panera. Too crowded. So was the Tropical Smoothie Cafe. He settled on Lone Star Steakhouse.
“There was no line,” said Cilento, Wake Forest’s associate head coach.
Sitting at the bar was Don Hutchins, a travel ball coach from North Carolina who had an undersized right-handed pitcher who was having trouble gaining traction on the recruiting trail.
“I had just eaten,” Cilento said, “and finally he looked up at me and said, ‘Rhett Lowder.’”
Lowder was a rising senior — ancient by baseball recruiting standards — and only had offers from mid-major programs such as Appalachian State, Campbell and UNC Wilmington.
“Bill said, ‘I promise you this, if you take this kid at Wake Forest, he’s going to be a first-team All-ACC pitcher,” Cilento said.
Wake Forest head coach Tom Walter remembers the recruitment as more of a threat than a promise.
“We had seen him pitch three or four times,” Walter said. “We liked him, but it wasn’t like we had to have him. Don Hutchins said, ‘I’ll never send you another player if you don’t take this guy. This guy is going to be as good as any guy I’ve had.’ And he’s had some major leaguers.
“So we took him, obviously, and it was the greatest decision we ever made.”
Lowder, as Hutchins promised, earned All-ACC honors. Twice. And All-America honors. He enters the postseason with a 12-0 record and a 1.73 ERA. In 88 2/3 innings, he has struck out 108 batters and walked only 17.
“He’s the best pitcher, pitch ability-wise, I’ve ever seen,” Wake Forest pitching coach Corey Muscara said. “He’s the best at handling pressure and expectations I’ve ever seen. There’s an awful lot of expectations on him to be good all the time. And he’s answered the bell every time.”
In July, Lowder will be Wake Forest’s 10th first-round pick and very likely the program’s highest pick since pitcher Kyle Sleeth went No. 3 overall in 2003.
Wake Forest was a broken baseball program in the spring of 2021.
“We had a pretty fractured team chemistry,” Walter said. “There were a lot of reasons for that.”
Chief among them was a senior class that included several players who didn’t expect to still be in college but were squeezed out of pro ball after Major League Baseball reduced the draft from 40 rounds to five in 2020 in a post-COVID-19 cost-saving measure.
Wilken was one of the many talented freshmen on that team who sensed something wasn’t right with the Deacons’ culture — and he was motivated to do something about it.
“I’ll never forget,” he said. “We just lost to Virginia Tech (in early April). We just got our butts smacked. And I was like 18. I was a freshman. And told (Coach Walter), ‘Don’t come out for the postgame meeting. I’ve got this.’
“Looking back, I’m like, ‘What was I thinking?’ But you know, I kind of just lit everybody up and was like, ‘What are we doing? Does anyone want to be here right now? Does anyone want to win? This is not what any of us came here to do.’ I just told the seniors, ‘If you guys want to win, you guys need to turn the ship around. Like this is your team. You know, everybody got screwed by COVID. Stop letting it affect you.’”
Wilken’s speech didn’t exactly turn things around — Wake still lost 13 of its final 23 games — but new leaders were emerging. The Deacs failed to qualify for the ACC Tournament but swept Pittsburgh in their final series to head into the offseason on a positive note.
Walter recognized the program was at a critical juncture.
“We just made a really intentional decision that we weren’t going to leave team culture to chance anymore,” he said.
The next — and most important — step in that process was a therapeutic trip to an estate in Summerfield, N.C., owned by Ken Miller, a big Wake Forest supporter and the father of former North Carolina guard (and current Cincinnati head coach) Wes Miller.
In advance of the trip, every member of the team was assigned to read the book “It Takes What It Takes” by Trevor Moawad, which prompted conversations about team chemistry and communication. There were fun competitions — wiffle ball, basketball, cornhole — and team-building sessions.
“We came out of there, and to a man, everybody was like, ‘Man, that was the best thing we ever did,’” Walter said.
Lowder said that was basically the first time he got to truly know many of his teammates.
“In the COVID year (2021), we didn’t hang out much as a team. You weren’t really allowed to,” he said. “So that was like the first time I’d ever collectively spent that much time with the whole entire team for a whole weekend. And everyone just started to click right away.”
Improved culture is nice. But having elite talent is even better.
Wake Forest took a step forward in 2022, advancing to the postseason for the first time in five years. The season ended with a loss to host Maryland in the College Park Regional, but significant progress was made — both on the field and in the locker room.
The Deacons entered 2023 ranked in the top 10 in every poll. There was high-end talent in the lineup and on the mound, and there was experience and depth.
And while the team’s ultimate goals will be pursued during the next month, it’s clear that this has been the program’s best season since the 1955 Deacons won the College World Series. On May 8, following a series win over Boston College, Wake Forest climbed to No. 1 in the nation for the first time in program history.
The numbers are staggering. A program-record 45 regular-season wins. A pitching staff that leads the nation with a 2.72 ERA. An offense that ranks in the top 10 nationally in runs scored (489) and OPS (.967) and includes six players hitting at least .320. Sophomore first baseman Nick Kurtz, a top 2024 draft prospect, is hitting .371 with 21 home runs in only 206 plate appearances. Wilken became the program’s all-time home run leader earlier this season (65 and counting) and is hitting a career-high .346.
This is dangerous to say, but this is a team without a weakness.
“This is the deepest pitching staff in the country, and I don’t know how you can argue with it,” said Kyle Peterson, a college baseball analyst at ESPN and a former pitcher at Stanford. “Their lineup has length. The numbers (defensively) are good.”
Walter and his staff were able to complement an already talented roster with a few strategic additions through the transfer portal. Second baseman Justin Johnson, a transfer from Lafayette, is hitting .346 with 13 home runs. Starting catcher Bennett Lee is one of two transfers from Tulane. Sean Sullivan is perhaps the most important of the newcomers. The left-hander from Northwestern stepped into the rotation after Teddy McGraw was lost for the season and has been brilliant. There are also key members of the bullpen from Dartmouth (Cole Rowland) and Georgetown (Chase Walter, the son of the head coach).
“Coach Walter has maximized Wake Forest’s academic reputation to attract transfers from other great academic reputation schools,” athletic director John Currie said.
This season, with all of its success, has not been without adversity. The Demon Deacons lost two key pitchers to season-ending UCL injuries in the first week of the season. McGraw, expected to be the No. 2 starter — and someone Muscara says has “the best stuff I’ve ever seen” — suffered his injury days before the opener in mid-February. Left-hander Crawford Wade, one of the top options out of the bullpen, pitched 3 2/3 innings before going down with his injury.
“It took its toll on everybody,” Muscara said about the early season pitching injuries. “And we all thought we had a chance to be good. But when those two got hurt, everyone was kind of walking on eggshells, and everyone was super nervous about it. Everyone was really down. And then a bunch of guys stepped up.”
The injuries weren’t limited to the mound. Lee missed 13 games with a broken finger. Kurtz missed nine games with hamstring and wrist injuries. Outfielder Adam Cecere missed 16 games with a hamstring issue.
Through it all, the Deacs kept winning. A lot. Not only do they have the best record in college baseball, but they are also the only team in the country that did not lose a weekend series.
And there is no question this team is taking the time to appreciate the journey.
“I’ve enjoyed every single second of the ride,” Wilken said. “I’m enjoying it most because I get to go out there every day and play with my best friends. And that’s just the greatest joy in the entire world.”
Don’t ask Muscara about Wake Forest’s pitching lab unless you have some time to kill. The Deacons’ second-year pitching coach is a lot of things — succinct isn’t one of them (there is a term around the Wake baseball offices to explain Muscara’s lack of brevity: “You’ve been Moosed”).
Muscara, however, has mastered the ability to use the findings from the program’s state-of-the-art facility to help his pitchers maximize their talents.
“It’s a lot of science, it’s a lot of numbers,” Muscara said of the data produced by Wake’s pitching lab and robust 20-person analytics team. “And we’re trying to take the guesswork out of things and make it a lot more streamlined, where we can like, figure out what makes you unique, what makes you successful, what allows you to be the best version of yourself. And we try to give it in a super simplistic package that doesn’t allow for players to get confused or to get bogged down by all the information.”
Wake Forest utilizes eight people, all with different tasks, to formulate a game plan for each pitcher. There is a biomechanist, the pitching lab coordinator, the team doctor, the athletic trainer, the head of the analytics team, the strength coach, the pitching coach and the head coach.
“How do we coordinate his development plan, not only his pitching?” Walter said. “What is he doing in the weight room? What is he doing in the training room? What does his pre-throw routine look like? What does his nutrition look like? Because we have more information than anybody else, we can come up with a more comprehensive and individualized plan than anybody else.”
Many schools have a pitching lab — with varying degrees of technology — but what makes Wake Forest unique is the presence of a biomechanist, Dr. Kristen Nicholson, on staff.
“The reality is if you don’t have the science, it’s not a lab, it’s surveillance,” Walter said. “I’m not saying (other schools) aren’t doing a great job. I’m just saying unless you have a scientist, you don’t have a lab.”
Walter is in his 27th season as a head coach. The 1991 Georgetown graduate spent eight seasons at George Washington and five at the New Orleans before taking over at Wake Forest in 2010.
This is the best team he has coached. But as a veteran of the college game, he understands that a lofty ranking doesn’t guarantee postseason success. Arkansas was the clear-cut No. 1 team in the nation in 2021 yet lost to NC State in the Super Regionals. Last year, Tennessee was, according to Peterson, “as complete a college baseball team as I think I may have ever seen,” but the Vols lost in the Supers to Notre Dame.
“Our guys know what is at stake,” said Walter, who has guided Wake to the NCAA Tournament on three previous occasions. “Our guys know how hard it is (in the postseason). You can have one weekend, and somebody comes in, and plays great and your season’s over.”
But Walter believes his team has the necessary ingredients to play deep into June.
“We have always been good enough offensively to compete in Omaha,” he said. “We haven’t always been good enough on the mound to compete in Omaha. I feel that now, in the last couple of years, because of the pitching lab, because of our analytics team and because of the ability to recruit a higher level of pitcher, now our pitching is right there with our hitting. You put good hitting and good pitching together … ”
And you have a team good enough to win a national championship.
(Photos courtesy of Wake Forest Athletics)
