Jamie Arnold enters the 2025 Florida State baseball season with quite lofty expectations placed onto him.

He sure didn't seem to be feeling any sort of pressure on his shoulders whatsoever based on his sensational Opening Day performance.

The FSU ace, tagged by a few different outlets as the National Preseason Pitcher of the Year, threw six shutout innings in his 2025 debut, allowing just one hit with eight strikeouts and no walks.

As it turned out, that's exactly what FSU needed to overcome what wasn't the hottest start to the season for the offense. Arnold's gem of a start followed by three shutout innings of relief was more than enough for the Seminoles to come away with a 6-0 win over James Madison Friday night at Dick Howser Stadium.

"Clearly a well-pitched game," FSU head coach Link Jarrett said. We talk a lot about wanting to be difficult to score on. When you have that kind of pitching performance from two drastically different arms, that takes you a long way."

Arnold started his outing with a bang, recording a nine-pitch first inning with two strikeouts. That was just the start of a sensational run which saw the Tampa native retire the first 14 batters he faced before Jack Guerrero reached on a two-out single in the fifth inning. That would be the only baserunner Arnold allowed that didn't reach on an error and he quickly escaped by fielding a bouncer over his head and throwing to first to end the inning.

"I felt good. It's always good to get out there for the first time and work through it. I felt like I had all my pitches," Arnold said. "I would like to use the changeup more, but I think it worked well just using the heater today so I was happy with it."

Sophomore right-handed pitcher John Abraham replaced Arnold in the seventh inning and picked up right where he left off, striking out the first six batters he faced and finishing with eight strikeouts over three shutout innings, recording his second career save.

In all, FSU's pitching staff finished the first game of the 2025 season with a combined 16 strikeouts and one walk, allowing just two hits. Considering the control issues the non-Arnold pitching staff had at times in 2024, that's quite a promising start on that front.

Given what the Seminoles got on the mound, they didn't need much offense to come away with a win Friday night.

Junior second baseman Drew Faurot gave them more than enough when he got FSU on the board with a three-run homer in the bottom of the third inning, one of his two hits on the day.

"I was looking for his fastball the entire at-bat and when I got to two strikes, I was looking for any pitch," Faurot said of his at-bat that ended with a home run. "I was just trying to see ball, hit ball and good things happened."

However, that homer wound up being FSU's only hit with runners in scoring position over the course of the entire game. The Seminoles finished their season opener 1 of 12 (.083) with runners in scoring position, 2 for 20 (.100) with runners on base -- with both of those hits coming from Faurot -- and stranded 10 runners on base.

"I thought we threatened in essentially every inning. We just did not show enough of an approach, pitch selection..." Jarrett said. "They pitched us tough. I would hope that as we settle, we're not trying to overdo it. I thought there were guys trying to do a little too much and swinging at pitches they don't normally offer at or chase at but that's part of game one."

They had just three hits on three runs until the eighth inning when they added three more runs (one earned) that was largely set up by a throwing error by JMU's shortstop with the bases loaded. Overall, five of FSU's six runs it scored Friday night were unearned thanks to five errors by JMU defensively.

FSU's lineup walked six times in the opening game, but struck out 10 times. Four of those strikeouts came from shortstop Alex Lodise in the No. 2 spot in the lineup.

Transfer additions Gage Harrelson (Texas Tech) and Nathan Cmeyla (Dartmouth) each had a hit in their FSU debuts. Harrelson led off the FSU fourth with a single and Cmeyla led off the ninth with a double.

FSU is back at Howser for Game 2 of the JMU series on Saturday at 2 p.m. USF transfer Joey Volini will get the start for the Seminoles against JMU's Jaden Kinsler.