Florida State Baseball Needs Two Wins Over St. John's Monday
Florida State baseball has to beat St. John's twice on Monday to stay alive in the Tallahassee Regional. The Seminoles lost to St. John's on Friday, and the only path to a third straight super regional now runs through two wins in one day.
Peyton Manca Gets Game 6
Peyton Manca will start the first game for Florida State. He enters with a 2-1 record and a 0.559 ERA in 9.2 innings pitched, giving the Seminoles a short-rest option as they try to keep their NCAA Tournament run going.
Monday's first regional championship game is scheduled for 12 p.m. on ESPNU. If Florida State wins that game, Game 7 is set for 4 p.m. on +.
St. John's Sends Evan Hoeckele
St. John's will counter with Evan Hoeckele, who has a 3.21 ERA in 33.2 innings pitched. The matchup puts Florida State back in the same bracket opponent that handed it the loss on Friday, with no room left for another slip.
The Seminoles reached this point by surviving a 2-1 win over Coastal Carolina in a game that took nearly 24 hours to finish because of weather delays and a postponement. They followed that with an extra-innings win over Northern Illinois, which kept the regional alive long enough to set up Monday's same-day path to advancement.
Florida State's One-Day Path
Florida State does not need a long explanation now. It needs two clean games against the same team, with the first one beginning at noon and the second only coming into play if it can extend the day past the opener.
That is the pressure point of the bracket: one loss sends the Seminoles home, while two wins move them into a third consecutive super regional. After the Friday upset and the earlier grind through Coastal Carolina and Northern Illinois, Monday is the last test standing between Florida State and another round of the NCAA Tournament.
