FSU offense erupts in win over Virginia to advance to ACC Semifinals
On paper, the Florida State baseball team was facing the only better ACC offense than its own Friday afternoon against Virginia.
But it was FSU's offense that stole the show and advanced the Seminoles into the ACC Semifinals.
The fifth-seeded Seminoles (41-14) smashed 12 runs on 16 hits to defeat the fourth-seeded Cavaliers (41-15) 12-7 early Friday afternoon at Truist Field in Charlotte to clinch Pool D and advance into the ACC Semifinals Saturday.
With the win, FSU is through to the ACC Semifinals for the first time since 2018 -- also the last time FSU won the ACC Tournament. It will face No. 8 seed Wake Forest on Saturday at 1 p.m. (ACC Network) with a spot in the ACC Championship Game on the line.
"You don't see college baseball games of that caliber often. We saw it today," FSU head coach Link Jarrett said after the win. "That's a really talented team, their offensive capabilities and athleticism defensively is really unique. Ours is obviously right there with it."
A seven-run seventh inning at the plate for the Seminoles was the difference. Of those runs, six came on five consecutive two-out hits. The biggest of those was a two-out triple by Daniel Cantu, but there was a pair of RBI hits on each side of Cantu's triple.
In Friday's game, the Seminoles were 8 of 16 batting with two outs (.500), scoring nine of their 12 runs with two outs.
"You have to two-out hit," Jarrett said. "To score in bunches, you have to display all of the tools of a good offensive team and that's what we did today. There were some massive two-out hits that drove in runs."
FSU's offense has largely been buoyed by home runs this season, of which the Seminoles began the day with 103 (tied for the most by an FSU team since 1999). However, much of FSU's offensive success Friday vs. the Cavaliers came without home runs.
The Seminoles plated their first 11 runs of the game without any home runs before James Tibbs III lined a solo home run to right field in the eighth inning. It's his 25th homer of the season, making him the first Seminole since Buster Posey (26 in 2008) to hit 25 homers in a season. It also moves him into a tie for the fifth-most career home runs in program history (52) with Mike McGee.
Tibbs, who also had a bases-loaded walk, a sacrifice fly and a two-run single in the fourth inning, finished with five runs batted, bringing his season tally to 84.
Overall, eight different Seminoles had at least one hit vs. VIrginia and six had multiple hits, led by three each from Drew Faurot and Alex Lodise. The bottom four hitters in FSU's lineup combined for nine of the team's 16 hits in Friday's win.
"It's fantastic. It is a versatile, deep, athletic lineup," Jarrett said. "It's hard to have nine, 10, 11 guys all on point with their pitch selection, decision making, two-out hitting, situational hitting. But wow, we really did it, top to bottom of the lineup. It was very impressive."
That offensive outburst was more than enough for FSU's pitching staff, especially with Jamie Arnold getting the start Friday afternoon. Facing one of the best offenses in the country, FSU's ace worked six stellar innings vs. Virginia, holding the Cavaliers to two runs on four hits with nine strikeouts and only one walk.
"I only have two pitches in play most of the time and today, I used them both well. I think they were attacking the heater early on and I figured that out," Arnold said. "So trying to move the slider around, once I started doing that, it got them off time on the heater and off time on everything. I think that was honestly the biggest thing today."
With the win, he improved to 10-3 on the season, making him the first Seminole to reach double-digit wins in a season since C.J. Van Eyk won 10 games in 2019.
Virginia's stellar offense woke up in a big way in the seventh inning with a trio of home runs off Carson Dorsey and Brennan Oxford to cut into FSU's lead. However, Oxford settled in from there, keeping UVA scoreless over the final two innings on just one hit to preserve the win and advance FSU into the semifinals.
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