FSU baseball blows four-run lead, gets walked off by Tennessee in opening game of College World Series (2024)

If the road to Omaha proved how far FSU has gone this season, tonight showed how far they have to go.

Florida State was one out — one pitch — away from starting off the 2024 College World Series with a win.

Instead, after a controversial ball call on what had all appearances of a strike, the Seminoles saw the final gasp of a four-run lead give out as the No. 1 seeded Tennessee Volunteers made it an 11-11 game in the bottom of the ninth.

Two batters later, a left-center single sent the winning run home and sent Florida State to the loser’s bracket.

Spotty defense and the bullpen were the weak spots of this team all season, and they always found a way to come up in the most critical moments. A meltdown from the pitching staff and just bad baseball did the Noles in. The Volunteers ripped Micah Posey’s staff apart for 18 hits and scored five runs in the final two innings, along with two out and situational hitting. Ten of 18 Tennessee’s hits came with two men down, and the Volunteers went 5-11 with runners in scoring position compared to 4-16 from Florida State. While 11 runs usually win a baseball game, there were multiple opportunities FSU could have blown the game open, but against the best offense in the country, every pitch makes a difference.

From the first batter of the game, strangeness and head-stratching moments were aplenty. Max Williams reached first on technically a base hit, but Tennesse’s first baseman Blake Burke inexplicably ran towards the ball hit at the 2B instead of covering the bag. Cam Smith walked, and James Tibbs hit into a fielder’s choice, putting runners on the corners with one out. After Dinges struck out, Jamie Ferrer walked, but a run came across, and Williams scored on the wild pitch. Alex Lodise struck out with the bases loaded, but Florida State started the game as needed.

1-0 — but the early FSU lead would be short-lived.

The first three Tennessee batters reached, led off by a triple from Christian Moore, as the Volunteers tied the game instantly. Another run came across to score, and if not for a double play with nobody out, the scoreline could have been worse.

However, the tense emotions did not stop with Arnold. After Jaxson West stood on second from another Vols’ defensive misplay, he made a base-running miscue by not scoring on a single to right from Williams to tie the game. On the ensuing at-bat, Smith grounded into a double play to end the inning as FSU trailed 2-1.

The lefty seemed to look like the first-team all-ACC pitcher with back-to-back strikeouts to start the second but found two-out trouble. A five-pitch walk to the nine-hole hitter brought up Moore for the second time in two innings, and he ripped a double down the line in left. A beautiful relay gave West the ball with the runner trying for home, but he dropped the ball as Tennessee went up 3-1. Then, Moore scored as Arnold botched a slow-roller back to the mound as the Noles unraveled.

Trailing 4-1, Link Jarrett’s team needed a response in the third. James Tibbs started the hit parade with a single to center before Dinges’ linear allowed Tibbs to go to third, as he advanced to second. Jamie Ferrer’s impactful day continued with a double into the right-center gap, bringing the 3-4 hitters into score. A Daniel Cantu single and Lodise walk loaded the bases with nobody out.

After a Drew Faurot strikeout, West received a free pass that brought the tying run to score. Williams smashed a ground ball to second, setting up an easy-to-convert double-play as the lineup turned over. Except, for the second time tonight, Burke made an error, missed the ball on the transfer from short, and two runs came across as FSU went up 6-4. With two outs, Cam Smith, the eighth batter of the frame, joined the fun and doubled to left, sending Williams home from first.

After a dominant display from his offense, Arnold put together his best, quickest inning. He recorded his third of four strikeouts for the first out of the frame before getting his second double play of the night to quickly end the third on eight pitches.

With the bats heating up, Dinges and Ferrer took advantage. The DH reached base to lead off the fourth and then Ferrer got a cement-mixer-breaking ball, depositing the ball for the first home run of the College World Series as FSU pushed out in front 9-4. In the bottom half, Arnold faced trouble for the third time in four trips, but a fly ball to Williams let him escape the bases-loaded jam.

The Florida State lineup cooled off with a 1-2-3 fifth for the first time of the day before the Tampa native allowed more runs. After looking to be settled in by starting the frame with a strikeout, he gave up a one-out walk before Kavares Tears, the Tennessee lefty six-hole hitter, who bats .330, brought the game within three with a home run of his own on a lousy breaking ball.

Arnold lasted five innings as Jarrett brought Conner Whittaker for the beginning of the sixth to face the top of the Tennessee lineup. He looked inconsistent for the second game in a row, and pitched good — not great like usual. Against a Volunteer lineup like this, Nolan Ryan would allow runs, and without defensive help again, two unearned runs came across. But, he did not throw well against lefties, exemplified by the lefty-lefty HR, the first one against a south-paw since Pittsburgh.

As the Super Regional hero entered, so did Moore, the SEC triple-crown winner. Missing a home run on his quest to hit for the cycle, Moore etched his name in Omaha history as he demolished a 440-foot blast to dead center. Whittaker settled the game down, getting the next three, but a one-time five-run advantage was whittled down to two with three innings left.

Needing insurance, the FSU bats went back to work after a two-inning malaise. West and Smith walked sandwiched between strikeouts from Williams and Tibbs. With two RISP and two outs, Dinges faced a lefty, where he hits .400. He needed one pitch to double the advantage with a two-bagger to left-center.

Pitching behind an 11-7 lead, Whittaker took control. He punched out his first two batters faced before working around a two-out infield single with his third strikeout of the frame. He ran his fastball up to 93 and paired his slider perfectly off it.

In the eighth, he continued to mow down the UT order with back-to-back outs before finding two-out trouble. The righty allowed three straight hits, resulting in a run to score, but a dribbler to the mound meant FSU carried an 11-8 lead to the ninth.

As the 2-3-4 went down quietly, the Vols began to mount a comeback. A lead-off triple to Tears increased the heartbeats of the garnet and gold before a sac fly made it a two-run game. Facing the 8-9 hitters, Jarrett brought on his most trusted reliever, Brennen Oxford, clinging to an 11-9 advantage.

After struggling against UConn, Oxford did not stop the momentum. He walked the first batter he faced before Moore doubled for his fifth hit of the day. Burke, another all-SEC batter, lined a full-count single into center that tied the game before two more base knocks put the winning run in scoring position. Jarrett turned the game over to Connor Hults, and the freshman did not stop the bleeding.

On his second pitch, Tennessee lined a ball into the gap, walking off Florida State by scoring four runs in the final frame. For as magical as this season has been, this is the hardest loss of the season, maybe the toughest break in years.

Florida State is now 9-15 all-time in the opening game of the College World Series.

The Seminoles will now face off against the Virginia Cavaliers at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 16 with the game set to be broadcast on ESPN.

Florida State beat the Cavaliers 12-7 last month in the ACC Tournament, the lone matchup between the two this season (61-34 all-time).