FSU rallies after disastrous start, but falls in Super Regionals Game 3, 14-10

The Florida State baseball team got off to terrific start in Sunday night’s Game 3 against Oregon State.

Max Williams launched a two-run homer in the top of the first to silence the Beavers’ fans and give FSU a quick 2-0 lead after a half-inning.

By the time the full inning was finished, however, Oregon State had scored seven and starting pitcher Wes Mendes was out of the game.

The Beavers used that seven-run first and then a six-run third to take complete control of the winner-take-all game in Corvallis.

They won. They took all. And they’re going to Omaha after their 14-10 victory on Sunday night.

Florida State’s season comes to an end one win short of the College World Series.

“Really good team on the other side, and I congratulate them,” Florida State head coach Link Jarrett said. “They played better than we did. … I’m proud of our team. These guys performed from start to finish this year.”

After FSU starters Joey Volini and Jamie Arnold completely baffled the Oregon State hitters in their two starts — allowing just two runs total in 13 1/3 combined innings pitched — Mendes went out and had his worst outing of the season.

The sophomore lefty, who was dominant in the Regional championship win over Mississippi State last Sunday night, gave up seven earned runs in just 2/3 of an inning. His outing went like this: Leadoff single, walk, deep fly out to right, hit-by-pitch, RBI groundout, RBI single, RBI single, three-run homer, solo homer.

By the time the dust settled, Oregon State had scored seven runs. Mendes was done. And the Seminoles were in an enormous hole. One that got even deeper in the bottom of the third.

With one out, Florida State reliever Payton Manca walked a batter, then hit the next one and got into a 3-2 count on the following batter. That’s when Link Jarrett decided to make a pitching change to Joe Charles. The righty issued that walk and then gave up a grand slam to Trent Caraway on the first pitch, ending his outing after just six pitches and essentially ending the game right there.

While the bullpen issues were not all that surprising, given that group’s struggles at times this season, Jarrett said Mendes was under the weather this week and that might have affected his performance.

“Wes had been fighting an illness this week,” Jarrett said. “Just the travel and the different allergy stuff that’s going out here for him. He didn’t look like it was as good as I’ve seen it. You have to have command of a secondary pitch, and we were trying to get him through it to see if he could find one of the secondary pitches.

“And you have an all right-handed lineup [from Oregon State]. It seemed ;ole if he could get the change-up going, the change-up’s pretty good. But they were on it, and we could not get out of that. That was damage. I think they scored seven runs in the first and six in the third, and those are tough to overcome.”

Florida State’s offense tried to chip away. The Seminoles scored runs on a Chase Williams homer, on an RBI groundout by Alex Lodise, a sac-fly by Jaxson West, an RBI infield single by Gage Harrelson and a two-run monster home run (429 feet) by slugger Myles Bailey. It was his 19th homer of the season, tying the freshman phenom with Max Williams for the team lead.

But it wasn’t enough after the two big Oregon State innings. The Seminoles actually scored two more runs in the top of the ninth thanks to singles by Drew Faurot and Hunter Carns and an RBI double by Harrelson. But Alex Lodise struck out looking (on a pitch that looked low) to end the game and the Seminoles’ season one win short of Omaha.

Chase Williams, Bailey, Harrelson and Hunter Carns each had three hits. Lodise and Max Williams each had two, as the Seminoles actually out-hit the Beavers 17-12.

But the only column that matters is the one for runs scored, and Oregon State had a lot more of those to earn its first CWS appearance since 2018, which was also the year the Beavers won the third national championship in program history.

Florida State finishes the season with a 42-16 record.

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