Battling for an ACC Championship and a potential Top 8 national seed, the Florida State baseball team picked up one of its biggest wins of the season on Friday in Charlotte.
ACC Player of the Year James Tibbs hit his 25th homer, ACC First-Team selection Jamie Arnold was exceptional for six innings on the mound, and the Seminoles were able to hold on for a 12-7 victory over Virginia to advance to the semifinals of the conference tournament.
Florida State is now 41-14 on the season. Virginia falls to 40-15.
For the second tournament game in a row, the Seminoles put 12 runs on the board. Most of that damage came in the top of the seventh inning, when they put up seven runs on seven hits.
Drew Faurot had two hits in the inning, Tibbs had a sac-fly RBI (after an intentional walk to Cam Smith), Marco Dinges had a two-out RBI single, Jaime Ferrer followed with an RBI single, Daniel Cantu followed with a two-run triple to the wall in left-center, and Alex Lodise and Faurot both followed with two sharp RBI singles of their own.
When the dust settled, FSU had an 11-2 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh.
It then was 11-6 before the Seminoles recorded their first out. Carson Dorsey, who has been Florida State’s No. 2 starter for the last two months, came on in relief of Arnold and got lit up: He walked the leadoff batter, gave up a two-run homer, a double and then another two-run homer before being relieved by Brennen Oxford.
The veteran lefty reliever Oxford was exceptional over the next three innings, allowing just one run and two hits in silencing the Cavaliers’ potent offense and helping the Seminoles to their 41st victory of the season.
Arnold, who got the save in Game 1 of the tournament against Georgia Tech, allowed just two runs (one on a bloop two-out double) and four hits in six innings of work. He struck out nine and walked just one to pick up his 10th win of the season.
Lodise and Faurot each had three hits to pace the FSU offensive attack. Tibbs, Ferrer, Dinges and Cantu each added two hits apiece as the Seminoles pounded out 16 hits on the day.
Eight of the nine starters in the lineup scored at least one run as Florida State stayed hot in Charlotte and stayed very much in the conversation to be a Top 8 national seed in the NCAA Tournament.
With the win, Florida State moves out of pool play and will face the winner of North Carolina-Wake Forest on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the ACC semifinals.
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