Section B Online

Tuesday March 16, 2010

	AT BAT				BALL					STRIKE					OUT						H/E
		2	5			3					2					2					H
				1	2	3	4	5	6		7	8	9	10			RUNS		HITS			E
FSU				3	2	0	0	0	0		0	0	0					5		7		0
UF				2	0	1	3	1	0		1	0	X					8	1	1		0

Seminoles lose to UF

by Paul Thomas, Warchant.com
http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1064119

GAINESVILLE—Florida State got off to a hot start Tuesday night, but it wasn’t enough as they fell to the 6th ranked Florida Gators 8-5.

No. 5 FSU scored five runs in the first two innings, including three in the first from a Mike McGee homerun. But the offense fizzled out as FSU mustered just one hit in the final seven innings.

“You’ve just got to tip your hat,” FSU head coach Mike Martin said. “That was just about as dominating a performance from their bullpen as you can have.”

Nick Maronde and Kevin Chapman combined to throw the final five innings of the game, giving up no runs, just one hit, and striking out six.

In contrast the FSU bullpen that threw five different pitchers, gave up five runs, walked four, struck out four, in the final five and third innings of work.

“I thought that with a three run lead, that we could possibly peace it together,” Martin said. “But we just couldn’t seem to get an out when we needed one, but that’s a credit to them.”

Starter Robert Benincasa went just 2.2 innings, giving up three runs; two earned, on two hits and three walks, and struck out just one.

Things unraveled for the Seminoles in the bottom of the fourth inning when Hunter Scantling started the inning off by hitting catcher Mike Zunino with a pitch. Florida went on to score three in the inning but it was almost much worse.

With the bases loaded, Preston Tucker hit the ball to deep right field, it looked to be a certain grand slam, but James Ramsey was able to make the catch at the wall and minimize the damage to just one run on the play.

“I thought we pitched very average,” Martin said. “But at the same time, the ball that Preston hit, I also thought was out of the ballpark. And we got lucky so to speak that it stayed in, but that was four runs I thought I was counting when he hit it.”

Offensively for the ‘Noles Tyler Holt was 2-5 with and RBI, and McGee was 1-4 with the three-run homer. McGee said he wasn’t sure why the offense finished the game with such a big slump, but he did think that they didn’t swing at some very hittable pitches.

“It doesn’t happen a lot, so it’s not easy to figure out,” McGee said. “But they did bring in some guys that were throwing well, and we just struggled to hit them. I would say not swinging at pitches we should swing at, rather than swinging at bad pitches, but credit to those guys they were throwing well.”

While it was just a mid-week game with no conference implications, McGee said the fact that it was Florida, made the loss sting a little big more.

“Any loss you need to move as soon as you can,” a disappointed McGee said. “We shouldn’t even be thinking about it anymore. But it does hurt a little more that it’s Florida and it’s down here. I wanted to win this game so bad, but you’ve got to just move past it. That’s why baseball’s awesome; we’ll play three this weekend.”

FSU will be back in action Friday night at 7:00 pm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to take on the Tar Heels in a three game series.

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Section B Online Player of the Game:

Mike McGee
1-4, 1 R, 3 RBI, HR