Florida State bats go silent as Clemson comes back to even series with 4-3 win
For the second game in a row, the Florida State baseball team jumped out to an early lead at Clemson.
But unlike Friday night, the Seminoles couldn’t keep the early momentum going and the result was a 4-3 loss as the Tigers evened the series heading into the Sunday finale.
Florida State falls to 35-15 overall and 16-10 in the ACC. Clemson improves to 30-21 and 9-17.
On the heels of Friday night’s 8-4 win in the series opener, a game in which FSU jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the early innings, the Seminoles once again struck early. Brayden Dowd hit a solo homer in the top of the first, Brody DeLamielleure followed with a double and scored on a Hunter Carns’ line-drive single to center.
Nathan Cmyela then also singled to center to put runners on first and second, but Gabe Fraser popped out to right and Ben Barrett grounded out to end the inning.
Two innings later, Florida State strung together some more hits, starting with a solo homer by DeLamielleure to left center. It was the second straight game with a home run for the redshirt sophomore. And the Seminoles added two more baserunners in the fourth inning, on two more hits, but once again FSU couldn’t get a big two-out hit with runners on base, and Clemson starter Michael Sharman was able to give up just three runs despite allowing eight hits in four innings of work.
Meanwhile, FSU starter Trey Beard did enough to keep his team in the game. But he couldn’t hold the 3-0 lead. He gave up a two-run, two-out homer to Jarren Purify in the bottom of the fifth and then gave up another run in the sixth on three singles. Chris Knier came on in relief and got the next five outs in order to keep the Tigers off the scoreboard in the sixth and seventh innings.
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But the Seminoles couldn’t do anything with Clemson reliever Danny Nelson. The freshman right-hander retired 12 FSU batters in a row in relief of Sharman to get his team to the bottom of the eighth in a 3-3 tie.
That’s when Kevin Mebil came into the game for Florida State. The lefty gave up a single to the first batter, then got the next two batters before intentionally walking Purify. He then unintentionally walked the next hitter on four pitches to load the bases.
Cade O’Leary was inserted into the game and got ahead of Jack Crighton 1-2. But his fourth pitch was a curveball in the dirt, Hunter Carns couldn’t block it and the Tigers wound up scoring the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. O’Leary then retired Crighton on the next pitch but the damage was done.
Florida State then struck out in order in the ninth to end the game, though the 3-2 pitch to Gabe Fraser to lead off the frame was well below the knees and should have resulted in a leadoff walk. Florida State didn’t have a single baserunner over the final five innings.
The Seminoles will try to win the series on Sunday with Bryson Moore on the mound.
*Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State baseball fans in the FSU Baseball Forum*
