HOW IT HAPPENED
- After a pair of scoreless innings, the visiting Seminoles scratched across the game’s first run with a two-out bases-loaded walk in the top of the third. UVA committed two fielding errors in the inning to keep the Florida State effort alive.
- In the top of the fifth, Florida State tallied back-to-back base hits before an RBI sacrifice fly put the Seminoles out front 2-0. Later in the frame, FSU extended its lead to 3-0 on a dropped third strike wild pitch.
- Virginia got on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Tiroly singled home Zach Jackson from second.
- Florida State tacked on its final two runs of the game an inning later with a two-run home run off the bat of Hunter Carns to make it a 5-1 contest.
- UVA answered with a home run of its own in the bottom of the fifth as Jake Weatherspoon took a 3-2 pitch to left field to open the frame. Weatherspoon’s leadoff solo was his second of the season.
- To keep Virginia in the game, Kevin Jaxel had his best outing of the season as the senior tossed three shutout innings with a quartet of strikeouts.
- UVA got the tying run to the plate in both the eighth and ninth innings before FSU’s John Abraham collected his fourth save of the year to help the Seminoles even the weekend series.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- The Virginia trio of Max Stammel, Noah Yoder and Kevin Jaxel combined for 15 strikeouts on Saturday. It was the fourth time this season that the UVA pitching staff had fanned 15 more batters.
- Noah Murray reached base for the 19th consecutive game when he worked a walk in the eighth inning.
- A total of 5,141 fans filed into Disharoon Park for the largest crowd of the season.
FROM HEAD COACH CHRIS POLLARD
“Over two ball games, we have shown that if we force them to have to string hits together to score, they have a hard time doing that against our arms. The difference today was that we gave them free offense. We gave them five outs in an inning; we gave them four outs in another inning; we gave them some free passes, and that allowed them to string together offense. We have to do a great job of going out there and attacking the zone to force them to have to string hits together; we’d be in a good spot. On the other side, we just saw two really good arms that competed at a really high level. I thought Beard executed the changeup really well and John Abraham is one of the best relievers in our league. He got the breaking ball going and it gave us fits.”
UP NEXT
The rubber match against No. 7 Florida State is set for 11 a.m. on Saturday (April 4) at Disharoon Park. Saturday’s contest will be carried on ACCNX with a radio broadcast on the Virginia Sports YouTube channel. Freshman John Paone (1-1) will get the ball for UVA against Florida State’s Bryson Moore (4-1).
