Wake Forest not worried about 1-seed curse, brings chip on shoulder

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons were one of the most dominant teams in college baseball this season. They’ve been the No. 1 team in the country for quite some time. Coming into the 2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament, the Demon Deacons earned the No. 1 overall seed.

While that’s usually a good thing, the NCAA Baseball Tournament hasn’t been kind at all to the No. 1 overall seeds. Only one No. 1 overall seed has actually gone on to win the national championship. That honor belongs to the Miami Hurricanes, who accomplished the feat in 1999, the very first year of the current tournament format.

Earlier this week, Wake Forest stars Rhett Lowder and Brock Wilken spoke about the curse of the No. 1 overall seed. As you might imagine, they’re not worried about it.

“Yeah, they said that there’s the No. 1 seed curse to get here, but then we got here,” Lowder began. “It kind of doesn’t really matter the seeding anymore. Everyone is going to be good, so if we play a good, clean game, that’s all we can really do. If we don’t play great, then it’s going to be a tough road ahead. Everyone is pretty good here.”

Lowder established himself as one of the most dominant pitchers in all of college baseball during the 2023 campaign. He’s posted a 14-0 overall record, while firing 131 strikeouts to just 21 walks. Lowder brought home 2023 ACC Pitcher of the Year honors.

Slugger Brock Wilken currently owns the Wake Forest career home run record. He also recently became the ACC’s all-time home runs leader (70) after he belted three home runs in the Deacs’ 22-5 obliteration of the Alabama Crimson Tide in their Super Regional matchup.

“That ranking means something until you get here, those rankings mean nothing anymore,” Wilken began. “It’s just about who goes out, plays the loosest and has the most fun. That team is more than likely going to win. We just have to keep playing our brand of baseball, and we’ll be all right.”

Wake Forest has been devastatingly dominant so far

Wake Forest knows they’ll have a target on their backs in Omaha. It’s certainly unchartered territory for their baseball program. They’re making their first appearance in the College World Series since 1955. It’s only the third College World Series appearance in program history. So far, they’ve played like a No. 1 overall seed should.

The Demon Deacons have steamrolled their competition in the NCAA Tournament, posting a 5-0 record and outscoring their opponents by 59 runs, the highest run differential ever by any team prior to the College World Series.

The Wake Forest offense led the charge on Sunday against Alabama, they blasted nine home runs (tying the NCAA Tournament record). The 22 runs Wake put up against the Crimson Tide were one shy of the NCAA Super Regional record.

Wake Forest and Stanford are set to play their first game in the 2023 College World Series on Saturday, June 17th at 2:00 PM EST. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN.

On3’s James Fletcher III also contributed to this article.