TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The top seeded FSU Baseball team (44-19) waited out the weather delays and utilized a stellar start from freshman right hander Drew Carlton to advance to the NCAA Super Regionals 8-1 over the College of Charleston (45-15). Quincy Nieporte drove in a game high four runs to advance FSU to its 14th Super Regional in school history.
The Seminoles will now head to Gainesville to face intra-state rival Florida in a best-of-three, Super Regional series. Dates and times for the Super Regional have yet to be announced. The match-up marks just the second time these two schools will meet in Super Regional play with the first and only time coming down in Gainesville in 2005.
Carlton (5-5) scattered six hits and one walk over 6.2 scoreless innings. For the second straight start, the Lakeland, Fla., native held the opposition without a run and against the College of Charleston the freshman right hander tied a career-high with nine strikeouts.
Carlton extends his scoreless innings steak to 13.2 innings. He has not allowed a run going all the way back to his start against Louisville in the ACC Tournament on May 23rd.
Florida State provided all the offense Carlton would need on Monday in the third. Following a 57-minute weather delay that halted play with the Seminoles at the plate in the top of the third with runners at first and second and one out, DJ Stewart laced an RBI double off the wall in center to score Danny De La Calle from second to break the scoreless tie.
The Noles would go on to plate two more in the inning on an RBI single by Nieporte and a sac-fly off the bat of Chris Marconcini to give the Seminoles a three-run advantage.
FSU pushed its lead to 6-0 with one swing of the bat by Nieporte in the fifth. With John Sansone and Stewart aboard following a walk and infield single, respectively, the Seminole first baseman took the first pitch from College of Charleston starter Hayden McCutcheon (1-2) out of the park to left center for a three-run home run, his second of the tournament.
The Seminoles added to their lead with a pair of two-out runs in the seventh to take an 8-0 advantage. FSU strung together four straight singles from Ben DeLuzio, Darren Miller, De La Calle and Josh Delph off Charleston reliever Eric Bauer. DeLuzio scored on Miller’s single to left as the ball went under the glove of Ryan Brown and all the way to the wall. Miller, who got to third on the play, scored a batter later on De La Calle’s RBI single through the left side.
Charleston would score its lone run in the eighth as Carl Wise scored on a passed ball.
Dylan Silva worked 1.1 innings in relief on Monday night as he allowed an unearned run on one hit as he walked one and struck out two.
Billy Strode worked a scoreless ninth to preserve the win as he ended the game by getting Brown swinging on strikes.
Nieporte, who was named the Tallahassee Regional Most Outstanding Player, finished the game 2-for-4 with four RBI and a run scored. Delph led all players with three hits, while Stewart, Taylor Walls, DeLuzio and De La Calle all finished with two hits apiece.
