Noles News: Baseball gets a sweep to start season (2024)

Recruiting

Florida State Recruiting Class of 2025: Commitments

QB 4-star Tramell Jones Jr.

LB 4-star Ethan Pritchard

OL 5-star Solomon Thomas

DL 4-star Javion Hilson

Football

Only 187 days until Florida State football — but, you know, who’s counting?

If you wanted to check out how the renovations at Doak Campbell Stadium were going:

Baseball

A major opening weekend for Florida State baseball, who kicked things off on Friday in perfect fashion by putting up 11 runs in honor of Mike Martin — the first win in a two-game sweep of the Butler Bulldogs.

From Tim Alumbaugh:

The FSU baseball team topped their 11 run outburst in game one with 15 runs in their series winning sweep over Butler. Saturday’s game was postponed and not made up. The Florida State offense scored runs in each of their first six innings before Coach Link Jarrett called off the ‘Noles in the seventh with multiple substitutions. But the offensive damage had already did all it needed to do as Jamie Arnold spun a masterpiece on the mound to lead FSU to a 15-5 blowout.

Arnold pitched five innings and only allowed two hits on the day. He fanned nine and gave up zero walks, which was huge for the sophom*ore who struggled with control issues last season. Arnold did allow one run, but it was unearned. For the weekend, FSU starters combined for 10 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 22 K, and 2 BB. A far cry from the struggles of last year’s starters.

Softball

It was an up-and-down weekend for FSU softball in Clearwater, first getting a huge win over Stanford then falling in back-to-back games vs. UCLA and Georgia before the final game of the weekend vs. Tennessee was canceled.

Basketball

FSU men’s basketball fought hard but fell short against the Duke Blue Devils, the latest loss in a February to forget for the Seminoles.

From Matt Minnick:

I know I sound like a broken record here, but in today’s basketball you can’t be on the losing side of the three point margin over and over again and expect to win a ton of games. You can be an average or even below average three-point shooting team and win lots of games. Houston is arguably the best team in the country despite shooting 34.6% from three on the season (136th). And you can give up a good amount of threes and still win lots of games. Clemson is likely a single-digit seed in the Dance and opponents shoot 34% from deep against them (192nd). But you can’t be both a poor shooting team from deep and a team that gives up threes in rhythm. Coming into the game Florida State ranked 260th in three point percentage (32%) and 221st in opponent three-point shooting (34.3%). Honestly, with those numbers I’m kind of impressed the ‘Noles have won as many games as they have.

This was a winnable game. Duke as a team did not seem to have a lot of consistent answers for FSU, nor did they have a lot of players who put extreme pressure on the Seminoles defense. But the game was lost in a 7 minute stretch at the end of the first half when Jared McCain nailed 3 threes and added a scoop shot layup. The rest of Duke’s team scored just two buckets in that stretch, but FSU had no answer for McCain. All of this came with FSU’s best player on the bench, and most of it also came with FSU’s best perimeter defender (Warley) on the bench. Watkins and Warley combined to play just 14 first half minutes. McCain himself played 19 first half minutes.

Florida State welcomes Boston College to the Tucker Center for a Tuesday night game. The two teams are familiar with each other, as FSU just escaped with a one point win in Chestnut Hill on February 6th. At this point an at-large bid is off the table, but FSU has the depth to win a few games in an ACC Tournament that feels pretty wide open given the lack of elite basketball across the league. So with the last double-bye still a possibility, every league win is critical.

FSU women’s basketball has found itself back on the right track as of late, with its latest win coming over the Miami Hurricanes to finalize a season sweep of their intrastate rival.

From Prince Akeem Joeffer:

Ta’Niya Latson led Florida State with 29 big points. Makayla Timpson delivered with another big double-double (16 points, 11 boards, three blocks). Sara Bejedi chipped in with 19 points.

The Seminoles were dominated on the boards 51-39 and the Canes had 21 offensive rebounds. However, as Coach Brooke Wyckoff mentioned after the game, those offensive rebounds only netted UM six second chance points.

Florida State was able to win a conference road game against a team that right now would likely be in the NCAA Tournament and they did it while shooting only 7-23 from deep. This team is finding ways to win even when the shooting isn’t great. Today it was because of a big edge in free throw shooting as FSU went 15-21 from the line while UM was only 7-10.

See Also

Sooners Still On Top: Updated look at the top 25 softball power rankings after week 2

This was an important game for FSU’s resume. This was the fourth Q1 win for the Noles running the record to 4-6 in Q1 games.

The other really important game for Florida State today was in Louisville. Virginia Tech did FSU a solid by beating Louisville today. That result opens the door for the Seminoles to grab a top four seed in the ACC Tournament. If the Noles win out they will very likely get that top four seed. However, it won’t be easy as the Seminoles will have to beat the Cardinals in Louisville (as well as avoiding any upsets) to get the fourth seed.

FSU has won five of their last six games and seem to be back on track. We will see if the Noles can finish the season strong.

All Sports

No. 13 Florida State men’s golf is set to kick off competition at the Watersound Invitational today:

The Seminoles join another strong field that includes NC State, Alabama, Notre Dame, Penn, Mississippi State, Virginia, Clemson, Oklahoma State, Ohio State, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech. Typically, the tournament gets a strong mix of ACC and SEC programs, with Alabama being the tournament host this year.

Shark’s Tooth Golf Club, which was also home to the 2022 ACC Men’s Golf Championship, is a par-72, 7,246-yard golf course. Last season, current senior Frederik Kjettrup won the tournament while FSU finished in third place overall.

Competing for the Seminoles this week are Luke Clanton, Kjettrup, Tyler Weaver, Cole Anderson and Jack Bigham. FSU also has three individuals in Gray Albright, James Tureskis and Michael Mays.

After the start of the tournament was shifted to Sunday due to weather, FSU women’s golf is currently in 14th place at the Moon Invitational, with Lottie Wood in a tie for 14th in the individual standings:

The final round of 18 holes is expected to be played and the tournament completed on Tuesday.

Auburn is in first place in the team standings with a 6-under par team score of 282. The Tigers have two players in the top three and four players in the top 25 of the individual standings after the first 18 holes of the championship. Auburn leads LSU by one stroke and tournament host Louisville by four strokes. Maisie Filler of Florida is the individual leader after the first round of play with a 6-under par score of 66.

Woad was Florida State’s leader in the first round with her 1-under par score of 71. She totaled four birdies and was as many as three strokes under par in the first round as she totaled three birdies on her first six holes. The All-American finished the round well with her final seven holes played at 1 stroke under par with one birdie and six holes played at par.

Woad has carded each of her four rounds at par or better and is averaging a team-leading 71.25 strokes per round this spring. She has totaled 10 of her 13 rounds during her sophom*ore season under par.

Sophom*ore Mirabel Ting, who is the defending Individual champion in the event, carded an even par score of 72 and is in a tie for 22nd place in the individual standings after the first 18 holes of play. Ting totaled two birdies and 16 holes played at par or better the first round. She was never more than 1 stroke over par on day 1 of play and is a total of 13 strokes under par in four career rounds during play in the Moon Invitational.

Molly Carlson, Gloria Muzito, Max McCusker, Ida Hulkko, Katrina Young, Julio Horrego and Yordan Yanchev — athletes with ties to Florida State swimming and diving — competed at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships:

Molly Carlson won the silver medal in high diving at her second World Championships. Representing Canada, Carlson battled with Rhiannan Iffland from Australia through all four dives, scoring 320.70 for second place. Carlson also won the silver at the 2023 World Championships after finishing second at the qualifier in 2021.

Gloria Muzito lowered her national record in the 100-meter free for Uganda, finishing 27th with a time of 56.55, winning her heat.

Max McCusker contributed his best time in the 100 fly. McCusker tied for 16th in the heats at 52.55. In the swim-off, McCusker finished second, but swam his best at 52.31, which was an Irish Senior National Record.

McCusker later swam the fly leg while helping Ireland to its first World Championship relay final in the 4x100 medley relay after qualifying eighth (3:34.97). In finals, Ireland moved up a spot to place seventh (3:35.28).

Ida Hulkko saved her best swim for last, finishing fifth in the women’s 50 breast. While representing Finland, she advanced to semifinals out of the heats in fifth at 30.56. In semis, she slipped to eighth (30.69), but secured the last spot in the final. She clocked 30.60 to place fifth overall in the finals.

Florida State women’s tennis fell 4-3 against No. 20 Tennessee on Sunday:

The Vols kicked off the match with a 6-2 win at No. 3 doubles, but the Seminoles responded with a 7-5 win at No. 2 doubles from 45th-ranked Ellie Schoppe and Maelie Monfils. Florida State secured the doubles point in an intense fashion as Vic Allen and Anna Arkadinaou won 7-6 (2) at No. 1 doubles over the nation’s 29th-ranked pair to take the early 1-0 lead.

Tennessee tied the match at 1-1 as it won 6-4, 6-1 at No. 6 singles.

Florida State retook the lead as No. 47 Allen won 7-5, 6-2 against Elza Tomase at No. 2 singles to make the match 2-1 before the Vols yet again tied up at the match at 2-2 with a win at No. 3 singles.

The Seminoles continued to fight as sophom*ore Millie Bissett won 7-6 (5), 2-6, 6-1 against the 83rd-ranked Catherine Aulia at No. 4 singles.

Tennessee closed out the match with victories at No. 1 and No. 5 singles. Despite the loss, Florida State took the final three matches to third sets and fought hard all day.