The Oregon Ducks and the Florida State Seminoles faced off in the Norwich Regional Final on Sunday evening. The Ducks were coming off a victory earlier in the day over UConn 4-3 to get a chance to face off against the Noles. Oregon sent Alex Keudall to the hill while Florida State countered with John Gast.
The game would remain scoreless until the bottom of the third when the Seminoles would break through with four runs. After a one out walk to Tyler Holt, Sherman Johnson absolutely crushed a ball off the right-center field scoreboard which gave the Noles the 2-0 lead. They would get another run on a Stephen Cardullo RBI double and a Stuart Tapley single to give the Noles the early lead. The Ducks would follow in the top of the fourth inning by taking advantage of errors from James Ramsey and Stephen Cardullo to score three runs on only one hit to cut the deficit down to 4-3. The only other run in the game came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Tyler Holt hit a one out homer over the left field fence to set up the final scoreline of 5-3 to send Florida State back to the Super Regionals.
The biggest story in the game was the fact that Daniel Bennett pitched 4.1 shutout innings while allowing only one hit and one walk to strike out five batters. Bennett’s performance raises his record to 4-1 while Oregon starting pitcher Alex Keudall got the loss after giving up four runs in 2.2 innings. Mike McGee got his 11th save by pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
