After battling back from a three-run deficit, Adam Magpoc stepped up to the plate in a big moment during the seventh inning of Boston College baseball’s series opener against Wake Forest.
Nathanael Frederking had pinch run for Gunnar Johnson after Johnson started the inning off by reaching on a throwing error. Then, a sacrifice bunt from Sam McNulty put Frederking in scoring position.
Magpoc delivered the game-tying run for BC, but the Eagles ultimately weren’t capable of grabbing the storybook ending they hoped for.
It only took Wake Forest (26–13, 10–9 Atlantic Coast) one inning to deliver the killer blow.
And BC (17–20, 7–12) had no answer in the half inning they had left, which led to it dropping the first game of its series versus the Demon Deacons 5–4 on Thursday night.
“We felt like we had the momentum kind of in our dugout—you could just kind of hear and feel the vibe in our dugout,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “But, you know, the guy they threw out of the pen was just lights out, and yeah, we just couldn’t scratch one on them.”
There weren’t many runs scratched in general for the Eagles on Thursday evening. But they were still able to draw first blood.
Kyle Wolff led off the second frame with a single, and Colin Larson’s sacrifice bunt advanced him to second. Johnson then rifled a double to right center, and Wolff crossed the plate for a 1–0 BC lead.
That lead did not last long, as Wake Forest scored its only runs until its go-ahead RBI in the eighth.
BC pitcher A.J. Colarusso quickly had the bases loaded. He started the inning by throwing two singles and hitting a batter with a pitch.
A sacrifice fly allowed Wake Forest to tie the game up 1–1. But the disaster was not over yet, as Colarusso walked a batter, then a wild pitch allowed a run that put the Demon Deacons up 2–1.
With only one out on the board and runners on second and third, Colarusso had work to do. But he couldn’t get out of the inning safe, as Cam Nelson knocked in those two runners with a triple to center field.
Besides a shaky second frame, Colarusso pitched a solid performance, pitching three more innings without conceding a run or a hit.
“Obviously, [Colarusso] lost it in the second,” Interdonato said. “And then, you know, for him to be able to come back and go three more zeros after that, it was something that we really needed. It kind of got us back in order.”
Thankfully for Colarusso, the Eagles’ offense had his back the next half inning, posting two more runs to cut the deficit to one in the top of the third.
Josiah Ragsdale set the tone, walking to lead off the inning and quickly stealing second. Patrick Roche’s groundout bumped him to third, and Jack Toomey’s right-center homer kept BC right within reach.
It was a quiet next three innings from both teams, as some back-and-forth ball left it up to the pitchers to make their marks.
Eric Schroeder tallied 1.1 innings of scoreless and hitless pitching. And although Joey Ryan did concede the go-ahead run, he too posted 1.2 innings of work with only two hits and one run allowed.
BC was the first to break through.
After Magpoc’s clutch single through the middle in the seventh, the Eagles applied some two-out pressure, as Magpoc and Roche reached third and second on steals.
But Toomey’s seven-pitch strikeout kept the game knotted at 4–4.
A 1-2-3 top of the eighth from BC put Wake Forest at the plate, and it only took five pitches for the scoreboard to change.
Kade Lewis sent a leadoff bomb over the left-field wall and a sword to the hearts in the BC dugout, completely swinging the momentum of the matchup in the Demon Deacons’ favor.
With three outs left, BC couldn’t get the ball rolling. The Eagles struck out twice in the final inning and fell just short of a comeback classic.
“I feel like we have a good blueprint of how to pitch them tomorrow,” Interdonato said. “And, you know, hopefully we hit one more home run than they do tomorrow.”
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