There might be a few more thrills yet in this roller coaster of a season for the Florida State baseball team.
After an ugly final week to the regular season, which came on the heels of an impressive month and following several other twists and turns, the Seminoles came out swinging to start pool play Wednesday in the ACC Tournament.
The tournament's No. 9 seed raced out to an early seven-run lead against No. 5 seed Virginia and eventually scored a run-rule victory against the Cavaliers, 13-3 in eight innings, in Charlotte, N.C.
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FSU (33-22) wasted no time flexing its muscle Wednesday after last week's 0-4 effort in three games at North Carolina and one against Florida.
The Seminoles claimed the lead in the top of the first inning when Brett Roberts doubled to score Jaime Ferrer, then they blew it open with six more runs in the third. Ferrer and James Tibbs blistered doubles to score two runs apiece and make it 5-0. Then Alex Toral made it an even more damaging inning for UVA, hitting a two-run homer.
Virginia (38-16) scored three runs in the fourth to answer, but FSU ran away with it from there.
Catcher Colton Vincent led FSU with three hits, and five other 'Noles recorded two hits apiece: Tyler Martin, Ferrer, Roberts, Ribbs and Toral. Tibbs led the team with three runs scored, and Toral drove in four runs.
FSU got a decent start from redshirt sophomore left-hander Bryce Hubbart; he gave up three runs in four innings. Then reliever Wyatt Crowell dominated the Cavaliers in the final four innings, scattering three hits with no runs and six strikeouts.
Florida State next plays No. 4 seed Notre Dame on Thursday at 3 p.m. ET. If the Seminoles win that to go 2-0 in pool play, they will advance to the conference semifinals on Friday. The Irish have yet to play in the ACC Tournament.
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