FSU Baseball Pulls Out Sloppy Road Win Over NC State
By Curt Weiler
The No. 8 FSU Baseball team entered their weekend series against NC State riding a 3-game winning streak, including a very impressive 8-3 win in Jacksonville over the #3 ranked Florida Gators. On the winning streak, the Seminoles had improved upon their defense, which at times this season has been downright despicable, as they committed just 4 errors over the 3 wins, 0 in the UF win. However, all the defensive woes appeared tonight as Florida State committed 5 errors and had just 4 team hits but used solid pitching and opportune plate discipline and hitting to win the series opener against the Wolfpack 3-2, improving to 24-7 on the season.
The ‘Noles got on the board first in the 3rd inning with Danny De La Calle and DJ Stewart both drawing walks before Quincy Nieporte singled to centerfield to bring in De La Calle, making it 1-0 FSU.
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Boomer Biegalski, who continues to pitch in the opening weekend game spot with Mike Compton still injured, worked around 2 errors, 1 in the 4th and 1 in the 5th, to maintain the lead for the Seminoles. However, Jake Armstrong evened the score at 1 in the 6th inning with a leadoff home run for NC State. A pair of errors and an infield single followed and the bases were loaded with still no outs but Biegalski worked his magic and used a trio of shallow flyouts to retire the side with no additional damage done.
In the 7th inning, it seemed like the fielding errors were finally going to hurt the ‘Noles as Logan Ratledge led off with a single, advanced to 2nd on a throwing error on the play, FSU’s 5th error, and scored 2 batters later when Jake Armstrong roped a single into left field, giving the Wolfpack a 2-1 lead. The lead would not last for long though, as the Seminoles had 3 batters get hit by pitches to load the bases and Darren Miller ripped a single into right center, scoring 2 runs and giving Florida State the lead back at 3-2 with what would be the game-winning hit.
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Billy Strode came on to close the game in the 8th and retired 6 batters, 3 by strikeout, to earn his 9th save of the season and preserve the win for the ‘Noles. Boomer Biegalski continued his dominating performances, allowing 10 hits and 1 walk, but only 2 runs, 1 of which was earned, and striking out 5, improving to 4-1 on the season with an ERA of 3.05.
The Seminoles and Wolfpack meet for the 2nd matchup of their 3 game series on Friday with a first pitch scheduled for 6:30 PM. Scheduled starting pitcher for FSU is Drew Carlton, who has been in the 2nd weekend spot since Compton went down with injury.