FSU Baseball: College World Series berth perfect end to wild season

FSU baseball has had a season with plenty of ups and downs in 2019 – but they get to finish the year as one of the eight teams heading to Omaha.

For the FSU baseball team, the date April 9th could be enough to make them cringe – after getting swept yet again in the regular season by rival Florida, the Seminoles were slumping after losing 12 of their previous 18 games and the questions began about if the final season under head coach Mike Martin would end with a postseason berth.

Fast forward exactly two months and the season will end with a trip to the postseason – but it didn’t end in Athens, Georgia and it for sure didn’t end in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Instead, the garnet and gold will take their 22 wins over the last 30 games on the Omaha as one of the elite eight in college baseball.

To see what the FSU baseball team has done over the last six games is enough to make you wonder one thing: what in the heck took this team so long to do it?

Florida State Seminoles

Entering the season, much was made about how the Seminoles were going to send out their longtime coach as he led them onto the field for his 40th and final season as head coach. After getting win No. 2,000 in his career, it seemed to an outsider like the Seminoles had just mailed it in at that point.

Heck, I wrote about it personally after the Noles run ruled a ranked N.C. State team in their ACC tournament finale that if you look at how the resume played out for the season the FSU baseball team did not deserve to make the NCAA tournament – which would have been the first time they didn’t make the field since the 1977 season.

But, after being one of the last four teams selected into the field, Martin has led the Seminoles through a five game win streak that includes two wins over a national seed Georgia team by a combined score of 22-4 and two straight wins over LSU that included a major comeback in the opener.

This postseason isn’t about individual performances – it’s not about the dominance of walk on Tim Becker in the regional round or the two home runs from Reese Albert in the Super Regional open or even about the solid starting pitching from guys like Drew Parrish or CJ Van Eyk – but it’s about the Seminoles playing as a team.

Am I saying that the FSU baseball team is going to shock the world and send out Martin the right way with the program’s first national title? I’m not ready to say that just yet – after all, as good as the end of this season has been we all have seen what the Noles have done (or haven’t done) in Omaha before.

But, to go from one of the last four in the field to one of the last eight left standing? Yeah, that is the type of “wild” ride that the postseason has been for the Seminoles.