FSU baseball collapses late in heartbreaking loss in CWS opener

Omaha, Neb. -- Add another chapter to the Florida State baseball novel of pain that has been the College World Series.

The Seminoles were an out away from a win over No. 1 overall seed Tennessee on Friday night in their CWS opener.

In fact, they were a strike away. And it sure looked like Blake Burke may have swung at that pitch. But the third-base umpire ruled he did not and the next pitch was hit up the middle for a game-tying two-run single in the bottom of the ninth.

Two batters later, Dylan Dreiling smashed a game-winning double to left-center, erasing a five-run deficit to give the Volunteers (55-13) a stunning 12-11 win over the Seminoles (47-16) in front of a crowd of 25,499 fans at Charles Schwab Field.

Tennessee plated five runs over the final two innings — and four in the bottom of the ninth — for its first comeback win after trailing through eight innings this season. The Volunteers' potent offense certainly looked the part, racking up 12 runs on 18 hits off the Seminoles.

For awhile there early on, things looked disastrous for the Seminoles. Tennessee staked itself to a 4-1 lead through two innings on a pair of RBI singles in the first and a pair of two-out errors by the Seminoles in the second inning.

FSU responded with a six-run third inning on five hits and then added two more in the fourth on Jaime Ferrer's 20th homer of the season and the first by anyone in this year's College World Series to turn an early deficit into a commanding 9-4 lead.

Tennessee's expected bulk starter, AJ Causey, came in after the opener faced three batters. He entered with a 3.77 ERA over 86 innings this season, but was chased after just 1.2 innings, allowing five runs on five hits.

In addition to FSU's hitting success Friday, the Seminoles also worked nine walks, keeping constant activity on the basepaths. They also struck out 12 times, but made up for that deficiency in other ways.

Tennessee charged back into the game with a pair of home runs from Kavares Tears and Christian Moore in the fifth and sixth innings. But Marco Dinges gave the Seminoles some insurance with a two-run, two-out double in the seventh inning, his third hit of the day.

The Vols got one run back in the eighth, but stranded the tying run at the plate thanks to a clutch groundout induced by Conner Whittaker on the mound.

But the Volunteers chased Whittaker in the ninth, got three hits over Brennen Oxford and then the winning hit off Connor Hults.

Tennessee second baseman Christian Moore had a monster game for the Volunteers, hitting for the cycle in his first four at-bats and then adding another double in the ninth inning, later scoring the tying run.

It's the first time FSU has scored 10-plus runs in a CWS game since a 12-2 win over Stony Brook in 2012.

Facing a Tennessee pitching staff that entered the CWS third nationally in earned run average this season (3.83), FSU mashed 11 runs on 13 hits. But after that outburst in the middle innings, the Seminoles plated just two runs over the final five innings at the plate while the Volunteers scored six runs over 3.2 innings against the FSU bullpen

FSU ace Jamie Arnold, tasked with facing a challenging Tennessee offense, in his first appearance in the CWS, allowed six runs (four earned) on eight hits over five innings with four strikeouts and a season-high four walks.

Up Next

With the loss, FSU drops into the loser's bracket of the CWS. The Seminoles will face Virginia Sunday at 2 p.m. in an elimination game. The winner of that game faces the loser of Sunday night's North Carolina-Tennessee game on Tuesday.