On Tuesday, #16 Wake Forest travels to Lynchburg for the first game of what has become an annual home-and-home against Liberty. WF was the preseason #1 team, but series losses to #9 Duke and #14 UVA plus a midweek drumming by #13 CCU has seen their stock fall in the eyes of the poll voters, dropping them to #16.
Liberty enters the game coming off of a series win against Canisius and another in one of the craziest series ever against MTSU. In between, Liberty lost a heartbreaker midweek game to VCU.
Comparison
| School | RPI | SOS | Non-Con SOS | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | L10 | Home | Road | Common Opponents |
| #16 Wake Forest | 23 | 18 | 101 | 2-5 | 1-1 | 7-1 | 6-0 | 5-5 | 2-4 | 1-3 | |
| Liberty | 195 | 147 | 158 | 0-7 | 0-2 | 3-1 | 7-3 | 5-5 | 7-7 | 0-4 |
Liberty and WF are on opposite ends of the RPI spectrum. WF playing an ACC schedule obviously has a tougher schedule. That said, WF hasn’t fared much better against common opponents than Liberty. While Liberty lost a close game to Duke and was swept by CCU with blowouts in two of three games, WF lost a close series to Duke and was blown out by CCU.
At home, Liberty is 7-7, and WF is 2-4 on the road. Their losses are to UNCG (RPI 81), CCU (RPI 24), and UVA (RPI 11). The loss to UNCG was 4-3 and obviously a huge upset.
Batting
| School | G | AVG | R | RBI | 2B | 3B | HR | SO | OBP | SLG | OPS | SB | R/G | K/G |
| Wake Forest | 23 | .279 | 199 | 180 | 48 | 6 | 38 | 204 | .413 | .503 | .926 | 29-32 | 8.65 | 8.87 |
| Liberty | 23 | .276 | 165 | 157 | 61 | 4 | 28 | 185 | .386 | .473 | .859 | 16-21 | 6.83 | 8.04 |
On the surface, the hitting between the two schools looks similar with a slight advantage to WF, but the level of competition plays a factor here. WF has several big hitters in 3B Adam Teller (9 HR, 1.227 OPS), 1B Jack Winnay (9 HR, 1.195 OPS), SS Seaver King (6 HR, .909 OPS), and DH Jake Reinisch (5 HR, 1.050 OPS). Six of nine of their regular batters have an OPS of .900 or higher. They are very efficient at stealing bases with Teller leading WF with nine steals in nine attempts.
Liberty’s hitting has been hot and cold. Liberty was mostly cold against CCU and ECU. Last weekend against MTSU, Liberty was hot, absolute zero cold, hot as a million burning suns. CF Kane Kepley leads the way with 5 HRs and 1.061 OPS. After him is DH Todd Hudson (3 HR, .998 OPS), RF Brayden Horton (4 HR, .915 OPS), and 2B Aidan Sweatt (3 HR, .962 OPS). 3B Cam Foster has been hot of late as well. His season statistics are beginning to reflect the hot streak. It reminds me of Logan Mathieu in 2022 when he dropped down to about .100 batting average and ended the season near .300 with a bunch of home runs. Freshmen 3B Tanner Marsh and C Macaddin Dye may not have the eye-popping stats yet, but the two of them have been steady throughout the hot and cold streaks. Both have very bright futures ahead.
Pitching
| School | ERA | WHIP | IP | H | BB | SO | HR | B/AVG | B/OBP | B/SLG | B/OPS | BB/9 | K/9 |
| Wake Forest | 4.80 | 1.34 | 202.1 | 164 | 107 | 277 | 25 | .218 | .346 | .365 | .711 | 4.76 | 12.32 |
| Liberty | 5.35 | 1.54 | 200.1 | 194 | 115 | 192 | 25 | .256 | .379 | .402 | .781 | 5.17 | 8.63 |
RHP Todd Hudson (So.) has been the starter over the past couple of midweek games, so expect him to start this one as well. Last year against WF, he threw 1.1 innings giving up one hit and three walks. Amazingly, he didn’t give up a run. This year, Hudson has thrown 5 innings with 1 H, 1 unearned run, 5 BB, and 5 K. His WHIP stands at 1.20 and his ERA is 0.00. If Liberty is to win this game, Hudson has to continue this streak of limiting hits but also reduce the walks. WF is a team that will take walks to set the plate for their big hitters.
RHP Ben Shenosky (So.) has made eight appearances this year and started the last two midweek games against CCU and High Point. His season stats are 15 innings with 8 H, 5 BB, 8 R, 8 ER, 21 K, and 6 HBP. I mention the HBP because in his start against CCU, he pitched 0.1 innings and gave up no hits, 4 R, 2 BB, and 3 HBP. That start would seem to be fluky, and I would expect a performance closer to what High Point saw — 4 innings with 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K.
Neither team can boast about the bullpen being a strength. We all know Liberty’s struggles in the bullpen. WF has a couple very reliable arms, but aside from them, they have a bunch of relievers with ERAs over 5 and WHIPs over 1.50. No small lead in this ball game will be safe.
Fielding
Aside from the ugly six error game on Saturday against MTSU, the Flames were sitting pretty in the fielding statistics. Of course, that game wrecked the stats, but it was a one-off game. Liberty’s defense up the middle has been very good. Much, much better than the past two seasons. The one weakness in Liberty’s defense is against stolen bases. Opponents have been successful in 34 of 37 steal attempts. Not sure if that is pitchers not holding runners well, catchers not getting the ball out in time, or some combination. Liberty has the advantage in double plays with 18 on the season.
WF’s fielding stats are good, but not spectacular. They do defend stolen bases better than Liberty, but it’s not spectacular as 21 of 29 steal attempts have been successful.
Finally
Liberty has a tall task ahead of them. Regardless of whether WF’s rankings have dropped, WF is still a CWS contender. The Flames have not had much success over the past couple years in these situations. Other schools that Liberty is competing with seem to pull off a big upset during the midweek schedule every year, but Liberty has not quite been able to get over that hump since the huge win over UNC in Lynchburg in 2022. This opportunity is as good as Liberty has had recently with how hot the bats were on Sunday and WF’s bullpen being not as good as normal. Time for Liberty to go get one of these signature wins.
