While Florida State baseball clinched a series win over rival Miami, the Seminoles final regular-season game of the year was a 7-4 loss to the Hurricanes.
The No. 11 Seminoles (38-16, 19-11 ACC) couldn’t sweep the Hurricanes, despite a season-best outing from Byrson Moore on the mound and early fireworks from Nathan Cmeyla. Moore threw 82 pitches and struck out two, while allowing two runs on six hits in 7.2 innings of work.
Cmeyla hit a solo home run to dead center in the second inning, putting the Seminoles up 1-0. Moore kept the Hurricanes quiet, and while he didn’t rack up strikeouts, he generated soft contact that helped him work through innings quickly.
Miami, however, broke through against Moore in the seventh inning, with Gabriel Milano hitting a two-run home run to go ahead 2-1. Chris Knier, one of the heroes in the Seminoles 7-6 win in game one, replaced Moore, and he was tagged quickly as the Hurricanes scored five runs in the final two innings.
Knier gave up back-to-back home runs with two outs, off the bats of Derek Williams and Alex Sosa, respectively, to give Miami a 4-1 lead in the eighth. The Seminoles started to rally, with an RBI single from Hunter Carns and a sacrifice fly from Nathan Cmeyal, but trailed, 4-3, going into the ninth.
Miami scored three in the ninth inning to pull away, and despite a Noah Sheffield home run for FSU in the ninth, the Hurricanes avoided the sweep with a 7-4 win.
Next up for FSU is the ACC tournament, where the Seminoles will be the third seed and will play on Friday, May 22.
Liam Rooney covers Florida State athletics for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at LRooney@gannett.com or on Twitter @__liamrooney.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU baseball unable to sweep Miami in 7-4 loss in regular season finale
Reporting by Liam Rooney, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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