It was a long week of waiting for the Florida State baseball team, arriving in Durham Monday for the ACC Tournament but not playing until Friday.
Once the Seminoles finally got to play, the offense quickly made up for lost time.
No. 2 seed FSU (38-13) jumped out to a massive early lead behind 12 runs on 13 hits over the first four innings of Friday afternoon's quarterfinal matchup vs. No. 7 Duke. That proved to be more than enough for the Seminoles to coast to a 14-7 win over the Blue Devils (37-19) at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to advance into Saturday's semifinals. FSU's 14 runs are the program's most in an ACC Tournament game since 2004.
FSU plated runs in each of its first four innings, putting up two in the first, one in the second, eight in the third and one more in the fourth to open up a 12-4 lead.
It was a hit parade for the Seminoles, who loaded the bases with no outs in both the first and third innings. Six different Seminoles had multi-hit days, but no one had a bigger day than freshman first baseman Myles Bailey, who matched his career highs with four hits and two home runs and set a new career high with three runs in the victory. He closed out FSU's eight-run third with a two-run homer and then crushed a mammoth 468-homer that cleared all of the bleachers in right field. With three home runs in his last two games, Bailey is up to 14 homers on the season while hitting .316.
Making his first start in nearly a month, designated hitter Brody DeLamielleure also had three hits for the Seminoles, tying his career high. Catcher Jaxson West hit his second homer of the season, a solo shot in the second, matching his regular-season home run total in his first postseason at-bat.
While FSU's offense has at times been reliant on home runs, the Seminoles had just three long balls in Friday's win. Instead, FSU just strung together hits vs. Duke, finishing 11 for 28 (.393) with runners on base and 7 for 14 (.500) with runners in scoring position and with 18 hits overall in the win.
That run support covered up what wasn't the sharpest of starts for FSU ace Jamie Arnold, who lasted just five innings and was pulled after allowing consecutive innings to start the sixth frame. Of the five earned runs Arnold allowed on seven hits, two of them were unlucky earned runs on a flyball Max Williams lost in the sun in centerfield while two were quite well-earned on a two-run homer from Duke's Noah Miller, who had four RBI in the loss.
John Abraham was the first FSU reliever out of the bullpen and struggled some with his control, walking three batters and allowing four of the five he faced to reach base. However, Joe Charles came to the rescue out of the bullpen, striking out Duke slugger Ben Miller to leave the bases loaded when he had a chance to cut FSU's lead to as little as two runs.
Charles retired the first seven batters he faced Friday before a leadoff double that came around to score in the ninth. However, Charles limited that damage to one, throwing the final 3.1 innings of Friday's win.
With the win, FSU is through to the ACC Semifinals for the second straight season. The Seminoles will play No. 3 seed UNC Saturday at 5 p.m. for a spot in the ACC title game, which will be played Sunday at noon. That's a chance for revenge for FSU as well as a chance for a resume-boosting win that could push FSU into a top-eight national seeds for the NCAA Tournament.
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