BATON ROUGE, La. — Mike Martin's final ride will indeed end in Omaha.
Drew Mendoza singled on a 2-2 pitch with two outs in the 12th inning to score Mike Salvatore and send the Seminoles to the College World Series with a 5-4 win over LSU in Alex Box Stadium.
Mendoza had struck out in each of his previous two at-bats before the heroics in extra innings.
In Martin's final year at Florida State, the star junior third baseman made sure it would end in Omaha with a line drive single to right center field. After Salvatore scored, the entire FSU dugout raced to meet Mendoza at first base and dog pile the third-round pick of the Washington Nationals.
It was his first RBI of the series. And it came at a perfect time for a Florida State offense that went seven innings without registering a hit.
Early on, timely hitting and a little bit of luck were on the Seminoles' side.
Robbie Martin walked to start the second inning. J.C. Flowers laid down a perfect bunt for an infield single. Carter Smith then followed with a single, loading the bases with none out for Nander De Sedas.
The freshman grounded out to the first baseman, who touched the bag and then threw home to get Martin. But LSU catcher Saul Garza had the ball pop out of his glove and Martin was ruled safe.
Matheu Nelson then followed with an RBI single to left and after Tim Becker popped up a suicide squeeze bunt, Mike Salvatore picked him up with an RBI single to center and a 3-0 lead for the Seminoles.
Van Eyk allowed a home run to No. 3 hitter Antoine Duplantis (the ball just snuck inside the foul poul down the right field line) in the fourth, but FSU answered right back in the bottom of the inning when Becker lined an RBI double down the left field line.
The FSU sophomore pitcher then kept the LSU bats mostly silent for the rest of his outing. He hit mid to high 90s with his fastball and kept the Tigers off balance with his curve.
His biggest trouble came in the sixth inning when he gave up three straight singles to the top of the LSU order - Duplantis's line drive to left drove in his second run of the game.
But with second and third and one out, Nelson made a great throw to nab the lead runner at third on a 2-1 pitch. Van Eyk then induced a fly ball to center to end the threat.
Two innings later, though, the Tigers did indeed tie the game. Again it was the top of the order that did the damage. Josh Smith led off with a double down the left-field line. And after a strikeout, Duplantis followed with a bloop hit to left that landed just inside the foul line to score Smith. Duplantis advanced to second on Becker's throw home.
That was it for Van Eyk, who was replaced by Antonio Velez.
The lefty reliever immediately gave up an infield single to Daniel Cabrera. Zach Watson followed with a sharp single off of Drew Mendoza's glove at third base that tied the game. Watson was eventually thrown out trying to advance to second on Becker's throw back to the infield. Velez got out of the inning on a groundball a batter later, but the damage had been done.
And from there, Velez and LSU reliever Devin Fontenot squared off in an incredible pitchers' dual. The two kept throwing up zero after zero. Fontenot didn't allow a hit in his first six innings. Velez continually kept mowing down LSU hitters as well, giving his team four chances to walk off in Alex Box Stadium in a 4-4 game.
Mendoza made sure there didn't have to be a fifth. And now the Seminoles are heading back to the College World Series. For the 23rd time in program history,
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @corey_clark on twitter.
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