BC Baseball Snatches Finale from #1 Florida State
By Joe Micik
On Sunday afternoon, Boston College finally broke through against the top baseball team in the country. With a 17-6 victory at Shea Field, the Eagles prevented a sweep at the hands of the #1 Florida State Seminoles and collected their fifth ACC victory of the season. BC is now 14-22 (5-13), while Florida State sustained just their second conference loss of the year.
The contest began with a flurry of offense as the Seminoles plated two runs in the top of the first, the Eagles took the lead with three in the bottom of the first, and Florida State came back with two more to go ahead, 4-3, in the top of the second. From there, however, the Eagles’ pitching settled down, as Kyle Prohovich came into the game in relief and gave BC 3.2 innings of scoreless baseball.
Boston College tied the game at 4-4 in the third inning on a Matt Pare RBI single, and took a 6-4 lead in the fourth on a two-base, two-run throwing error committed by FSU shortstop Justin Gonzalez.
Over the course of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, Boston College knocked in eleven runs, with eight coming in the bottom of the 8th. In sum, the Eagles banged out nine hits in the inning and 19 for the game which saw them reach their highest run total so far this season.
The ACC cross-divisional standings currently look like so:
1. Florida State (16-2, Atlantic leader)
2. North Carolina (12-6, Coastal leader)
3. Miami (12-6)
4. North Carolina State (11-7)
5-6. Clemson/Virginia (9-9)
7-10. Maryland/Wake Forest/Virginia Tech/Georgia Tech (7-11)
11. Duke (6-12)
12. Boston College (5-13)
The cutoff line for the ACC Tournament is eighth place, which is now at 7-11. That’s just two games better than the Eagles are right now, which means that with twelve conference games to go, there is plenty of time for BC to recover. They are going to have to build some forward momentum, however, and if a win over the #1 team in the country can’t get it started, then an opportunity will be lost.
The Eagles return to the diamond on Tuesday as they host Rhode Island.