Wake Forest players ready for first elimination game of NCAA Tournament

For the first time this postseason, Wake Forest has their backs against the wall. In the NCAA Tournament, a team has to lose twice to be eliminated in any round, whether it’s the Regionals, Super Regionals, College World Series pool play or the championship series. In order to go home, you gotta lose two games. Well, No. 1 overall seed Wake Forest hadn’t even lost one game in the tournament before yesterday, when they fell to No. 5 seed LSU to set up the Demon Deacons’ first win-or-go-home matchup on Thursday.

The Tigers fell to Wake Forest on Monday to drop into the loser’s bracket, but rallied from there to face Wake again and beat ’em on Wednesday to force a rubber match. After the first loss of the tourney for the Deacons, some players and head coach Tom Walter spoke after the game, with All-American third baseman Sean Sullivan leading the way.

“I think it just goes to show that you don’t take any day for granted,” said Sullivan. “Just keep fighting for another day to play with each other. I know that’s what it’s all about. That’s what we want to do. We’ll have to be extra gritty tomorrow, grind out at-bats, just keep working on the mound. Just fight to play one more day with each other.”

He certainly doesn’t seem panicked over the loss and neither did veteran Pierce Bennett, who’s confident that Wake will come out sharper and ready to battle for their lives on Thursday.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s just another game. Bottom line, we’ve been doing it all year. Haven’t lost a series all year. Knock on wood on that one. So, I mean, we’ve been through it before. It’s just another game for us. We’re going to come out ready to play.”

The two Demon Deacon players aren’t overreacting to one loss. Sure, they could have booked their trip to the championship series on Wednesday, but LSU is just too good to go down without a fight and they were bound to take at least one off Wake out of three. Now, focus shifts towards simply getting the job done next time out rather than dwell on missed opportunities.

“Obviously disappointing loss, but we’ll come out ready to play tomorrow like we’ve done all year,” added Coach Walter said. “We’ve responded to adversity all year. And tomorrow will be no different.”

Expect a cage fight between the Tigers and Deacons for a chance to face the Gators for all the marbles.