Florida State may have technically been the road team on Monday, but the Seminoles gave the fans a show in their final game at Dick Howser Stadium for 2015 and advanced to the Super Regional round with an 8-1 victory over College of Charleston.
FSU starter Drew Carlton nearly equaled the seven shutout innings he tossed last time out against Louisville on Monday by throwing 6 2/3 scoreless innings allowing six hits and a walk while tying a career-high with 9 strikeouts.
The contest was originally set to take place Sunday evening, but was prematurely postponed due to weather. Monday’s start was pushed back two hours and the FSU (44-19) offense finally came to life after another weather delay in the third.
D.J. Stewart broke the scoreless tie with a RBI double that was followed by a Quincy Nieporte RBI single. Chris Marconcini capped the 3-run inning with a sacrifice fly.
For the second time in three days, the Cougars had no answer for keeping Nieporte in the yard. After hitting the game-winning homer in a 3-2 victory over College of Charleston on Saturday, Nieporte doubled the FSU lead with a 3-run blast in the fifth on Monday.
Finishing the day with four RBIs, Nieporte was one of six Seminoles to have multiple hits. Nieporte, Stewart, Taylor Walls, Danny De La Calle and Ben DeLuzio each had two hits. Lead-off man Josh Delph had three hits. Stewart scored a pair of runs.
Carl Wise had two of the seven hits for the Cougars (45-15) and scored the only run for College of Charleston on a passed ball in the eighth inning.
After going 0-2 in last year’s Tallahassee Regional, Florida State will make the short trip to Gainesville for the Super Regional to take on rival Florida in a best-of-three series. The Gators also went a perfect 3-0 in the Regional round, beating Florida A&M, South Florida and Florida Atlantic. FSU took two of three from Florida during the regular season.
Featured image courtesy of Jim Daves/UVA Media Relations