ATLANTA — The No. 5 Florida State baseball team prepared to face arguably its toughest conference opponent in No. 3 Georgia Tech in this weekend's series. The Seminoles had hopes of winning one or two games against a quality opponent.
Unfortunately Georgia Tech had other plans. After dropping Thursday’s night's game to the Yellow Jackets 4-3 in heartbreaking fashion, FSU followed up the next day with another loss, outclassed by Georgia Tech 8-3.
Saturday saw FSU battle early but the Seminoles couldn't sustain offense or quality pitching as Georgia Tech took a 17-3 run-rule win over FSU in seven innings.
The Seminoles (24-11, 9-6 ACC) were swept for the first time this season. It was also the first time the Seminoles have been run-ruled this season.
“Clearly we need to mature in some areas, more at the plate than anything else,” FSU coach Link Jarrett said. “That’s a solid team and they earned those games.”
While there were some early hits, FSU was just 1 for 10 with runners on base.
Florida State jumped out on the Yellow Jackets (30-5, 15-3) in the first inning when center fielder Brayden Dowd cranked a home run over the right-field wall to give the Seminoles an early 1-0 lead.
Bryson Moore got the start for FSU and gave up an RBI single to Jarren Advincula to tie the game, but Moore quickly composed himself and struck out the next three Georgia Tech batters to get out of the inning.
The Seminoles would add another solo home run in the bottom of the second inning and it would come from an unlikely bat. Senior shortstop Carter McCulley has been struggling at the plate, sporting just a .185 batting average with no home runs.
However, that changed when McCulley absolutely tattooed a ball to straightaway center field that traveled over 400 feet to give the Seminoles a 2-1 lead. That lead would not stand for long as Georgia Tech shortstop Carson Kerce homered to deep right field in the bottom of the second inning to tie the game at 2-2.
Junior Cole Stokes (0-1) came in for Moore after three innings of work. Moore had 67 pitches, five strikeouts and gave up two earned runs on the day.
“He was feeling something,” Jarrett said of Moore. “We didn’t want to keep going and we know we need more out of him down the road.”
After going scoreless in the third and fourth innings, Florida State started the fifth inning with a Chase Williams triple after he lined a shot down the right-field line. The next batter, John Stuetzer, would hit a deep shot to left field for a sacrifice fly to score Williams and briefly held a 3-2 lead.
Georgia Tech wouldn’t be down for long as the Yellow Jackets would tie the game again in the fifth inning on a double down the left-field line from Advincula, which scored center fielder Drew Burress. The Yellow Jackets would tack on four more runs to extend their lead to 7-3 going into the sixth inning.
“I’ve been through situations like this before and I think our guys will respond from this,” FSU coach Link Jarrett said. “Clearly, for some of the younger position players, there's no substitute for feeling what this is like.”
FSU would be overwhelmed, as the Yellow Jackets hitters were too much and would pound the ’Noles for the rest of the game at the plate. Florida State used seven pitchers total for Saturday's game and none of them found success against one of the nation's best hitting teams. That was evident in the sixth inning when the Yellow Jackets put up 10 runs to give them a run-rule win.
Up next
FSU now has a four-game losing streak. The Seminoles look to bounce back on Tuesday against Stetson (6 p.m. on ACC Network Extra).
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