Wake Forest's centerfielder misplayed a fly ball so hard it donked him in the head

Pierce Bennett was having a great 2022. Then he got bonked.

Baseball is a hazardous sport. Particularly in the outfield, where towering fly balls can disappear in the sun before careening from the heavens back to earth. The risk of a high velocity donking isn’t especially high, but does happen from time to time.

The pinnacle of this rare event came when Jose Canseco had a warning track fly ball sucked in by the gravity of his massive head before bouncing over the wall for a home run. On Friday, the College Park Regional of the 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament between Wake Forest and UConn produced a worthy successor.

Wake Forest center fielder Pierce Bennett is officially listed as an infielder and spent much of his first two seasons with the Demon Deacons as a second baseman. He moved off the diamond in 2022 and spent most of the season cycling between outfield spots and making occasional returns to the infield. He had 80 putouts and 21 assists while recording a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage this spring.

Which makes the clip you’re about to see a little tougher to process.

Batter Erik Stock wheeled to third base for what was officially ruled a triple. He’d score one batter later when Casey Dana lifted a deep shot over the outfield fence to give UConn a 7-2 lead.

Bennett is presumably OK, and he stayed in the game after giving up that triple, though things didn’t get much better for Wake Forest. One half-inning later, he ended the bottom of the seventh by grounding into a double play.

But the Demon Deacons ultimately covered Bennett’s mishap by later tying the game.