The Daily Nole

FSU Baseball: Noles Eye National Seed

wlpearce.com/FSU athletics

Fresh off a weekend sweep of Notre Dame, Florida State is riding high. The Seminoles have won five straight games and found themselves ranked as high as third when the polls were released Monday.

With 15 games remaining in the regular season, FSU has realistic hopes of earning a national seed. That’s something that was far from a guarantee when the season started.

Though he catches a fair amount of slack from the fan base for being unable to win the “big one”, Florida State head coach Mike Martin has done arguably one of the best coaching jobs of his career this season. With a mix of youngsters and transfers, FSU has successfully replaced outfielders Josh Delph and former ACC Player of the Year D.J. Stewart as well as weekend starter Boomer Biegalski and relievers Bryant Holtmann, Dylan Silva and last season’s ACC saves leader, Billy Strode.

Thanks to guys like senior infielder John Sansone, freshman catcher Cal Raleigh and lead-off hitter Taylor Walls, the Seminoles have scored the second most runs in the ACC behind only Louisville. The FSU pitching staff ranks in the top 50 nationally in earned run average and a bullpen that includes Jim and Ed Voyles, Chase Haney, Alec Byrd and Matthew Kinney is one of the conference’s best.

To get one of the eight national seeds would be enormous for Florida State. Should that happen, FSU would not have to leave Tallahassee until the College World Series.

The friendly confines of Dick Howser Stadium have been especially kind to FSU this season. The Seminoles are 23-6 in front of their home crowd this season and just 5-5 everywhere else. Against Baseball America’s current top 15, the Seminoles are 4-3 at Howser.

In addition to being in the top 6 in each of the major polls, FSU is also currently sixth in the RPI. For the Seminoles to get one of those eight national seeds, they will need to play well down the stretch and that stretch isn’t an easy one.

Eight of Florida State’s final 15 games are on the road, including a 3-game series against Clemson which will begin on Saturday. The Seminoles close the regular season at home versus rival Miami, which was ranked No. 4 this week by Baseball America.

Florida State is also going to have to deal with some midseason attrition and injuries. Reliever Cobi Johnson is done for the season and it was reported Monday that Jim Voyles will be out for at least two weeks after taking a line drive off the head. Voyles has been the best overall pitcher for the Seminoles this season, with a 5-0 record and 1.19 ERA.

Earlier this month, FSU lost a pair of players who spent time starting in the outfield for different reasons. Gage West was suspended and Darren Miller left the team to focus on academics, leaving freshmen Donovan Petrey and Jackson Lueck to man the corner spots with Steven Wells, a sophomore, platooning.

Securing the national seed will be tough and obviously, garnering one won’t make FSU a lock to reach the College World Series in Omaha. It will however, greatly ease the journey. The Seminoles narrowly missed earning a national seed a year ago and after breezing through the Tallahassee Regional, FSU was handled by rival Florida in the Super Regional by 13-5 and 11-4 scores.

In fact, since the NCAA Tournament went to its current format in 1999, the Seminoles have never advanced to Omaha by winning a Super Regional outside of Tallahassee. They’ve been five times.

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