ACC Baseball: Florida State punches ticket to ACC Championship Game

DURHAM, N.C. — The No. 16 Florida State Seminoles have punched their ticket to the ACC Championship Game against NC State on Sunday with a 6-0 shutout victory over No. 5 Louisville Cardinals at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

It was scoreless for the first 5 1/2 innings until walks and hit batters began to come back and hurt Louisville and their starter, freshman phenom Brendan McKay (Darlington, Pa.) who pitched five plus innings of work and allowed three runs (two earned) on four hits.

Quincy Nieporte (Atlanta, Ga.) got the scoring started for the Seminoles in the sixth with a chopper up the middle that Sutton Whiting (New Wilmington, Pa.) was unable to field cleanly allowing John Sansone (New Castle, Pa.) to score giving FSU a 1-0 lead.

The Seminoles were able to score two more runs in the frame on a hit by pitch with the bases loaded of Dylan Busby (Sarasota, Fla.) and an RBI single by Ben DeLuzio (Windermere, Fla.) to go up 3-0 after six.

“I thought Quincy had the at bat of the game,” Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell said. “Two strikes, just battle, battle and it was a tough play for Sutton. He hit a ground ball and hit that dirt and it took off.”

The Seminoles added two more runs on a two run single by former Duke star, Chris Marconcini (Brentwood, Tenn.) in the seventh inning that broke the game open.

“I thought they were going to come in with the lefty there. I was just going in there, I thought he was going to come in first pitch early, get a strike after that, and just put a good swing on it,” Marconcini said.

Drew Carlton (Lakeland, Fla.) pitched fantastic on the mound shutting down the Louisville Cardinal bats.

“It was the Drew Carlton show,” Florida State head coach Mike Martin said in his opening statement. “The guy went out there and pitched a beautiful baseball game. I mean both sides of the plate, had the change up and the slider working. No doubt controlled seven innings of the game.”

 

De Luzio added another run on the board for Florida State in the eighth inning on a home run to left field that put an exclamation mark on their 6-0 shut out victory over the Cardinals.

“Want to congratulate Florida State. They went 3 and 0 this week, and they deserve to play in the championship game,” McDonnell said in defeat. “They played a great ballgame.”

With the loss, Louisville falls to 43-16 on the year and is in good position to host an NCAA Regional. Florida State meanwhile improves to 40-19 on the year.

ACC Championship Preview

The Seminoles will be making their 11th ACC Championship appearance and first since 2011 when they lost to Virginia 7-2. The Seminoles are 5-5 all-time in their 10 previous ACC Championship appearances.

NC State is making their 13th appearance in the ACC Title game with a 4-8 record in their previous 12 appearances. Florida State is 11-5 against NC State in the ACC Tournament.

The only previous time these two teams have met in the ACC Championship Game was in 2010 when Florida State beat the Wolfpack 8-3.

Miami walks-off with a 6-5 victory over Notre Dame

Less than 24 hours after getting walked off on by NC State, the No. 9 Miami Hurricanes walk-off against Notre Dame 6-5 at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

Bryan Garcia (Miami, Fla.) blew his second save in as many nights when Ryan Bull (Eden Prairie, Minn.) hit an RBI double to tie the game up at four. The Irish then took the lead later in the inning on an RBI single by Robert Youngdahl (New Brighton, Minn.) to take a 5-4 lead.

That lead would not hold up as the Hurricanes as Chris Barr (Royal Palm Beach, Fla.) would lead off the bottom of the ninth with a solo home run to tie the game back up at five. Brandon Lopez (Miramar, Fla.) would then win the game for the Hurricanes on a walk-off RBI single to win the game 6-5.

Miami finishes the ACC Tournament 2-1 and improve to 44-14 overall. Notre Dame falls to 36-20 on the season.

Big inning dooms Virginia again, fall 10-2 to Wolfpack

In a tune-up game for the ACC Championship game, NC State scored eight runs in the top of the eighth to propel them to a 10-2 victory over No. 24 Virginia.

It was the second time in this tournament that a big inning has doomed the Cavaliers. Virginia gave up seven runs in the eighth inning in their first game of pool play against Miami in a 9-5 defeat.

Bubby Riley (New Orleans, La.) hit a grand slam in that eight run eighth, his second home run of the year. Ryan Williamson (Cranford, N.J.) pitched seven solid innings giving up just two runs on six hits and six strikeouts.

NC State improves to 34-20 on the year and will play Florida State in the ACC Championship Game Sunday. Virginia falls to 34-22 on the season.

You can follow me on Twitter @Ewints. Like us on Facebook and check out @InsideTheACC.

 

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