Florida State baseball defeated at home by FGCU

After taking two out of three against NC State on the road, the Florida State Seminoles returned home on Tuesday, and proceeded to shut out Florida Gulf Coast by a final score of 5-0.

The Seminoles got off to an early lead, scoring one run in first from a John Sansone RBI single. The Noles then scored four more runs in the bottom of the second with four different players collecting an RBI. The offense went cold the rest of the night, only being able to muster five hits in the remaining 6 innings.

On the hill, Bryant Holtmann got the call and excelled in his start. He pitched 8 innings of shutout baseball, allowing seven hits, walked two, and struck out six.

"Location was the key for me tonight. I was able to locate my fastball and my cutter. Threw a lot of cutters again tonight like I did against Florida, and was able to keep it down in the zone and get quick outs."

Alec Byrd came in the top of the ninth, and closed the game out for FSU, giving them their 26th victory of the season.

Josh Delph recorded a multi-hit performance for the second game in a row, and DJ Stewart added three hits, going a home run shy of the cycle. Six of the nine Seminoles in the lineup recorded a hit, but not one reached on a walk. It was the first time since March of 2013 that Florida State did not have a walk.

"It certainty wasn't anything other than we were getting some pretty good pitches to hit and we took advantage of it."

Florida State will now prepare to take on Florida Gulf Coast in the final meeting between these two tomorrow at 4 P.M. from Dick Howser Stadium.

Wednesday:

After shutting out FGCU 5-0 in yesterday's game, the Seminoles were not able to get anything going offensively, eventually falling victims to a 5-0 shutout themselves.

With Danny De La Calle and DJ Stewart absent from today's lineup, the team's offensive struggles picked right up where the left off last night, when they recorded five hits in the final six innings. Florida State threatened in the bottom of the seventh, loading the bases, but were not able to get any runs on the board in their only real opportunity. The team in total recorded seven hits, and went 3-16 with runners on base and 0-7 with runners in scoring position. This was the first time all season that they have been shut out.

Jim Voyles started the game, and got removed after 2 1/3 innings, giving up six hits and three runs (two earned). Alex Diesi relived Voyles, and gave up a run in his first inning of work, but settled in and in total pitched three innings of one run baseball. Taylor Folsom gave up two walks and an unearned run in his 1/3 inning pitched. Dylan Silva, Will Zirzow and Ed Voyles combined to pitch the remaining 3 1/3 innings, not allowing another run.

Fielding continued to be an issue today, as it has been all season long. The Seminoles had three errors, which led to two unearned runs. The team now has committed 60 errors in just 35 games. Coming into the game, they were ranked #241 in fielding percentage in the country out of 295 teams.

Florida State falls to 26-9 on the season, and will head to South Bend, Indiana for a three game set against a 20-10 Notre Dame team, beginning at 6:05 PM on Friday.