For the first time in five years, the Florida State baseball team has reached the 40-win plateau.
And in the process Tuesday afternoon, the Seminoles got some sweet revenge against Georgia Tech, which came back to beat FSU in the teams’ regular-season finale three days prior.
It wasn’t easy. It seemingly never is against that relentless Yellow Jackets lineup.
But Florida State ace starter Jamie Arnold came on in relief to get the last two outs, and FSU hung on for a 12-9 win on Day 1 of the ACC Tournament in Charlotte.
The Seminoles (40-14) play again on Friday morning against Virginia. The winner of that game will advance to the tournament semifinals.
For the first half of Tuesday’s game, it looked like Florida State might cruise to its third win against the Yellow Jackets this year. Marco Dinges, Daniel Cantu, Drew Faurot and Jaime Ferrer all hit two-run homers to give the Seminoles an 8-1 lead heading into the seventh.
Up until that point, against starter Conner Whittaker (2 innings pitched) and relievers John Abraham and Joe Charles, the Yellow Jackets had scored one run on one hit. Then their bats got hot in the seventh inning, as they scored five runs on seven hits. Reliever Brennen Oxford gave up three of those hits but did get a huge bases-loaded pop-out to right to finally end the inning.
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Florida State was able to tack on four insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. Faurot had an RBI double — his third extra-base hit of the day, to go along with a fantastic double play he turned in the field — and Max Williams and James Tibbs both followed with run-scoring hits as well, as the Seminoles took a 12-6 lead into the top of the ninth.
It then got real tight real quick.
Connor Hults gave up a leadoff homer and then walked two of the next three batters he faced. Andrew Armstrong came on and allowed a single to the only batter he faced, loading the bases with one out in a five-run game.
So, FSU head coach Link Jarrett went with Arnold to get the final two outs of the game.
It was Arnold’s first relief appearance of the year. He got a groundout to first before allowing an RBI single to Georgia Tech superstar Drew Burress. But with the tying run at the plate, Arnold got a swinging third strike to put the Jackets away.
He threw nine pitches in the outing and is still expected to make his start Friday against Virginia.
It was the 20th game this season the Florida State offense scored in double-digits.
Faurot led the way with three hits, Cam Smith, Alex Lodise and Dinges each had two.
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