BATON ROUGE, LA -- For the first five innings it looked like the same Florida State team we had seen for much of the season. Sloppy defense and quiet bats had the Seminoles in a 4-0 hole on the road in Baton Rouge in Game 1 of the Super Regionals.
But then the magic the team seemed to be soaked in back in Athens returned and FSU stormed back to win 6-4 and take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-two series.
Reese Albert hit home runs in two straight at-bats, the first being a massive three-run, game-tying homer to right field in the seventh and the Seminoles stunned the enormous crowd at Alex Box Stadium with their late-game eruption.
The Seminoles didn't record their first hit until there was one out in the sixth inning. Robby Martin singled to right field to move Drew Mendoza (who had walked) over to third. An out later, Matheu Nelson drove in a run with an infield single off the third baseman's glove to cut the LSU lead to 4-1.
An inning later, thanks to an epic at-bat by Abert, the game was tied and the LSU crowd was stunned. Tim Becker ripped a one-out single to right field off reliever Todd Peterson. Then Mike Salvatore walked against new pitcher Trent Vietmeier, setting the stage for Albert.
He fouled off four straight 3-2 pitches. All fastballs. On the 11th pitch of the at-bat, he didn't foul anything off. Instead, he crushed a 3-run homer over the bleachers in right to tie the game at 4-4.
Florida State took the lead an inning later on a Tim Becker sac fly to left field off LSU closer Zack Hess after falling behind 0-2.
And then Albert added to the lead on the first pitch of the ninth when he launched a home run to right field that seemed to be in the air for 10 seconds.
J.C. Flowers then finished off the Tigers in the ninth, getting Antoine Duplantis to pop up with two on and two out. It was a two-out save for Flowers, who worked a 1-2-3 eighth inning.
Starter Drew Parrish couldn't get out of the fifth inning for the Seminoles. The lefty wasn't terrible by any stretch but allowed single runs in four consecutive innings. He wasn't helped by a defense that committed two errors behind him and also had a critical passed ball.
But he still kept LSU from getting a big inning. Which kept his team in the game. Until the bats from Athens arrived.
Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @corey_clark on twitter.
------------
Discuss this story with other FSU fans on our Seminole Baseball Message Board
