OMAHA, Neb. -- Drew Parrish didn't know about the streak before the game. Neither did Drew Mendoza or any other Drew associated with the 2019 Florida State baseball team.
Not that they would've cared anyway.
Oh, so the Seminoles haven't won their first game of a College World Series in 20 years? Big whoop! No Seminole team -- and this is the absolute truth -- has ever had a run to Omaha like this.
So who cares what those other teams did? They're not the 2019 bunch.
This Florida State team, on the strength of just five hits (all singles), was able to knock off top-eight national seed Arkansas on Saturday, 1-0, thanks to Parrish's left arm, J.C. Flowers' right arm, glove, abdomen and legs, and two freshmen coming through in the ninth inning to manufacture the game's only run.
"I had no idea about that," Mendoza said, when told that FSU hadn't won its first game in Omaha since 1999. "This team is different. ... We've got something going on that I don't really know what it is. But we're going to continue doing what we're doing."
What they've been doing is beating really good SEC teams. The win on Saturday was FSU's fifth straight against what many believe is the sport's toughest conference. (It just means more, apparently, to these 'Noles when they play against that league.)
What the Seminoles also have been doing is making believers out of all of us who still remain skeptical of this team's ceiling.
I know this is a dead horse, but I'll continue to beat the tar out of it if I have to -- this was the worst regular season in Mike Martin's career. The Seminoles were one of the last four teams in the NCAA Tournament field. They were a No. 3 seed for the first time ever.
And yet not only are they somehow in Omaha, but they're in the winners' bracket. And they'll be playing Michigan on Monday night for a chance to start 2-0 in Omaha.
What is going on here? What world is this?
Is this a collective dream? Is it actually happening?
For the better part of four months, Parrish has been inconsistent as Florida State's Friday night starter. On Saturday, in front of 26,000 fans, he was incredible.
He was the 2018 Drew Parrish. He was the guy who both Mike Martins (senior and junior) think will pitch in the big leagues. He was nails. Awesome. A dude. However we refer to great pitchers these days, he was that.
"Parrish was really good," Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. "He was really good when we got runners on, especially in scoring position, mixing that change-up, fastball, breaking ball. We hit some balls hard early at people, hit a couple balls off the end of the bat that just happened to go right at them, as well, but that's kind of the way the game works. But give them credit, they did a great job -- both pitchers."
It was the best Parrish has looked all season. The junior lefty, who was a preseason All-America candidate, struggled for large chunks of 2019. But on the game's biggest stage, against one of the sport's best lineups, he looked like an All-American again.
"It's the best feeling in the world, honestly," Parrish said. "26,000 fans out there watching the game, plus TV, and to go out there and compete against probably one of the best teams in the tournament, honestly. That was just a great team win."
Sure. But the team doesn't win if Parrish doesn't match Arkansas ace Isaiah Campbell pitch for pitch. And, even more specifically, if he doesn't get out of a jam in the bottom of the eighth inning of a 0-0 game.
The Razorbacks' Christian Franklin led off the inning with a double that landed just inside the right-field line. That meant Arkansas had the go-ahead run at second base with nobody out and the top of the order due up.
So what was Parrish thinking at that moment?
"I think I was like, 'Daaaang, this is tough,'" Parrish said with a smile. "But I had to pitch out of it. Their 1-2-3 (hitters) are probably the best hitters in the nation, so I definitely had to make pitches and get them to swing at stuff they don't normally swing at."
He got leadoff hitter Trevor Ezell to bounce out to shortstop for the first out, but that advanced Franklin to third. He then struck out both Casey Martin and Matt Goodheart to end the threat and fire up his own dugout.
Which set the stage for the next set of heroes.
Flowers led off the ninth by being hit with a pitch. He then advanced to second when Arkansas shortstop Martin tried to tag him on a ground ball up the middle. When Martin hit Flowers in the stomach with his glove, the ball flew out into short left field.
It was the kind of break that FSU never seems to get out here. It was an opportunity the Seminoles would quickly seize.
Freshman catcher Matheu Nelson sac-bunted Flowers over to third base, then freshman second baseman Nander De Sedas drove him in with a fly ball to medium right field.
Flowers raised his arms as he crossed home plate, high-fived some teammates, took his helmet off and then sprinted toward the bullpen 350 feet away to warm up.
That's not normal, of course. For a closer to do all that. With two outs in the top of the ninth inning. But nothing about this team is normal. We all know that now.
"That might've been the first time (I had to sprint to the 'pen like that)," Flowers said. "But I was ready. Parrish did a heck of a job holding them off to no runs. And as soon as I scored that run, I knew I had to get down to the bullpen and get ready."
Thanks to Arkansas challenging whether Flowers left third early on the play -- by the way, I really wish there were more reviews in college baseball -- and then a mound visit, Flowers had enough time to get in 15 warm-up pitches before facing the 4-5-6 hitters of the Arkansas lineup.
That was enough.
He pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, and the Seminoles were celebrating like it was 1999.
"We didn't even know that stat until after the game," Parrish said.
Veteran FSU assistant coach Mike Martin Jr. knew it had been a long time since the 'Noles had won a Game 1 in Omaha. When I asked him what he remembered about that win over Texas A&M in 1999, he couldn't come up with anything.
"Any loss, though, I can tell you anything you want to know about that," he said with a laugh. "Any win? I can't remember anything."
Kind of like bad beats in poker. And make no mistake, FSU has had some ungodly tough luck in Omaha through the years.
But on Saturday night at least, with Parrish and Flowers dealing and some freshmen coming through in the ninth, they had an all-time memorable win.
"I think back to some of the losses here, and you literally feel like you're snake-bit," Martin Jr. said. "Something weird would happen. We've had a lot of those situations. But these guys don't pay attention to that. They don't give a (darn). They're like whatever. We got kicked when we were down.
"So (large) crowds, supposedly a better team? Whatever. Let's play."
And they're still playing. In Omaha. In the winners' bracket.
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.
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