FSU baseball: Noles come back to defeat Central Florida in extra innings

FSU baseball (11-6, 7-5 ACC) saw their winning streak continue with a 6-5 extra inning win against Central Florida (9-11).

The game was a pitcher’s duel early before the Noles broke through in the bottom of the third inning on a two-out double by Robby Martin.

FSU starting pitcher Carson Montgomery was nasty early, with nine strikeouts and two walks in four innings. However, he threw a lot of pitches going deep in the count on a lot of batters.

UCF tied the game on a two out hit in the top of the fourth inning. However, it was back-to-back homeruns from Tyler Martin and Matheu Nelson in the bottom of the fifth that was the difference in the game. It was Martin’s first career home run and the eighth of the year for Nelson.

Martin finished the game with three hits and Robby Martin had two hits and the two RBI’s.

Jack Anderson came on in relief of Montgomery, going two innings and striking out three batters, and allowing no hits. The FSU bullpen got into a jam in the top of the eighth inning as Chase Haney allowed back-to-back hits to lead off the inning.

Davis Hare came in and gave up a hit to the first batter, allowing a run to score.4-3. UCF scored another run on a ground out to tie the game at 4-4.

UCF threatened again in the top of the ninth, but Jonah Scolaro relieved Hare to get the final out of the inning.

Central Florida got back-to-back hits in the top of the 10th inning and pushed across the go ahead run on a throwing error by Nander de Sedas.

FSU began the bottom of 10th with two hitters hit by pitch and a walk. Matheu Nelson brought in the tying run on a sac-fly and Reese Albert walked with the bases loaded to bring home the winning run.

Parting Thoughts

FSU batters hit a lot of balls hard early in the game before they finally broke through to score runs.

The UCF starting pitcher was throwing a lot of strikes and the Noles did a good job of attacking in hitter counts.

Carson Montgomery will be an ace pitcher for the Noles in the future. He has dominant stuff, but needs to learn how to be more efficient with his pitch count. When he gets ahead of batters he is almost unhittable.

The FSU bullpen had been lights out coming into the game, but UCF did a great job of attacking pitches early in the count. The Noles showed a lot of resolve in getting out of some tough situations, but I felt the offense started to press later in the game and couldn’t get anything going.

It’s great to see the guys didn’t fold after giving up the lead in the top of the 10th.

The Noles will return to action Friday as they host Wake Forest.