5-4 loss to St. John\u2019s<\/a> in the Tallahassee Regional championship round, it certainly was by the way he had to pause and collect himself several times when talking about his 2026 Seminoles.<\/p>\nThe first pause came when he reflected on the incredible vibes he saw and heard in the Florida State locker room all season. No matter what was happening on the field, he said, there was an ever-present joy and positivity among his players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t explain it, what that feels like in there on most days,\u201d Jarrett said. \u201cThe polar opposite of what it is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second pause came when he started talking about injured first baseman Myles Bailey, who was on his way to an All-America season when he went down with a gruesome ankle injury midway through the year.<\/p>\n
While the injury dealt a crippling blow to the Florida State offense \u2014 Bailey finished the season with a team-high 13 home runs despite playing less than half the season \u2014 Jarrett seemed to really get emotional about how it affected Bailey individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cHurt for Myles still,\u201d Jarrett said. \u201cThat was the most dynamic bat I\u2019ve ever seen. \u2026 Played against [former MLB star] David Ortiz a lot coming along, and you\u2019re talking about just power and capabilities. It\u2019s in a very exclusive group of players, hitters. You still hurt for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarrett, who is finishing his fourth season as head coach at his alma mater, got emotional again when asked what he said to his team after Monday\u2019s final out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn\u2019t been in a dugout that was that eerie and that silent after a loss like that,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the locker room was worse. Worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarrett has seen seasons end on bigger stages. He\u2019s had multiple teams lose in NCAA Super Regionals and in the College World Series.<\/p>\n
He has fielded better teams. Teams with greater chances of winning a national championship. <\/p>\n
But the respect he developed for this particular Florida State squad \u2014 this flawed team that overcame a slew of injuries and a very inconsistent offense to still win 40 games \u2014 was maybe unmatched.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fight of the group is something that I felt with this team more than any other team,\u201d Jarrett said. \u201cWhy that was, it\u2019s an accumulation of the tenacity of the guys in the locker room. Man, that\u2019s where the fight comes from. They all pull for each other, and they want to win. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not hocus pocus stuff. You could see it. I think the fans felt that here. I think that\u2019s why they enjoyed it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarrett actually started his press conference Monday by thanking those fans for how supportive they were all season, and especially in the regional. He also thanked the Florida State administration, the team managers, bat girls and everyone else associated with the program.<\/p>\n
But his most heartfelt comments were reserved for the team that had just played its last game together. A team that seemed to be fighting an uphill battle all season due to injuries and roster shortcomings, but one that competed relentlessly from start to finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys absolutely fought \u2026 and never stopped,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that we ever saw our personnel intact to provide the opportunity to see everybody full-speed-ahead healthwise. That was a part of our story this year. We all understand that it is, it\u2019s tricky to overcome that. I think we did it. I think we did it. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never forget the fight of this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
*Talk about this story with other die-hard Florida State baseball fans in the FSU Baseball Forum<\/a>*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This wasn\u2019t the first time Link Jarrett had to walk into a disappointed locker room. It wasn\u2019t the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[13088,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-314375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-plus","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314375","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=314375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}