No. 5 Florida State played host to Florida for the third and final matchup of the 2026 season, with the Seminoles looking to avoid a sweep after dropping games in Gainesville and Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
The game was tied after three innings before a big fifth gave Florida a 4-1 lead. A late rally in the eighth pulled Florida State within one, but the Seminoles fell 4-3.<\/p>\n
Cooper Whited took the mound and worked a 1-2-3 first inning. Brayden Dowd had Florida State\u2019s only hit in the bottom half, and Florida pitcher Cooper Walls struck out the first two batters of the second before retiring the side on weak contact.<\/p>\n
The scoreless game ended with two outs in the top of the third on a Hayden Yost home run to deep right field, giving the Gators a 1-0 lead. John Stuetzer led off the bottom of the inning with a hit by pitch and moved to second on a wild pitch. Chase Williams followed with a bunt that advanced Stuetzer to third while reaching safely, and Dowd tied the game with an RBI single.<\/p>\n
Whited retired the side in order in the fourth. With one out in the Florida State half, Caden McDonald replaced Cooper Walls. A long drive to left-center was caught, and Kelvyn Paulino Jr. was doubled off first base.<\/p>\n
Florida opened the fifth with a Cole Stanford home run to left field to make it 2-1. Gabe Nard entered in relief with two outs. Hunter Carns threw out a runner attempting to steal, but a pitch-clock violation issued a walk, and two wild pitches and another walk loaded the bases. A single through the right side pushed the lead to 3-1, and a drive to right field made it 4-1. The inning ended when the batter was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.<\/p>\n
Cole Stokes replaced Nard to begin the sixth and worked a quick inning. Florida State went down in order, with Carns singling before a sharp play by Florida shortstop Kolt Myers ended the frame.<\/p>\n
Two walks with two outs in the seventh put runners on for Florida, but Brodie Purcell entered and stranded both with a strikeout. With the game on the ropes, the Florida State bats had to answer. A Cal Fisher hit by pitch and a Stuetzer infield single put two on, but back-to-back flyouts ended the inning.<\/p>\n
Purcell worked around two walks in the eighth. To begin the Florida State half, a fielding error on a bounced ball advanced Noah Sheffield to second. After a Dowd flyout, Carns destroyed a baseball deep into left field for a two-run home run to cut the deficit to 4-3.<\/p>\n
Paulino Jr. reached on an infield single, and Gabe Fraser entered as a pinch runner. A wild pitch and a walk put two in scoring position, but Cal Fisher struck out. Stuetzer then went down looking on a 99 mph fastball from Joshua Whritenour.<\/p>\n
Jake Echols relieved Purcell in the ninth. A Carter McCulley fielding error put a runner on, and a single moved him to second before Echols struck out a batter and got a flyout to strand both.<\/p>\n
McCulley struck out to open the bottom of the ninth, and Williams flied out to left. Sheffield singled over the outstretched glove of the Florida shortstop to extend the game, but Dowd struck out to end it. Florida won, 4-3.<\/p>\n
Up next for the Seminoles is a road series vs. No. 3 Georgia Tech, with first pitch set for 7 p.m. on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 5 Florida State played host to Florida for the third and final matchup of the 2026 season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[71160,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-222885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-florida-state-baseball","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}