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ACC Tournament One-and-Done: Miami Baseball Crushed by California 12-2

On3 photo -2by:Izubee Charles•05/20/25•

IzubeeCharles

Miami baseball vs. Louisville
(photo courtesy of Miami Athletics)

Miami’s rollercoaster season continued Tuesday with another low point, as the Hurricanes (31-25, 15-14 ACC) suffered a mercy-rule 12-2 defeat to the California Golden Bears (23-30, 9-21 ACC)—the lowest-seeded team in the ACC Tournament—in their only game of the event.

After riding a midseason surge in which they won 12 of 13 games, Miami has now dropped six of its last seven. Tuesday’s loss was emblematic of that slide. The Hurricanes fell behind 2-0 early, then unraveled in the fourth inning as Cal poured in seven runs—a blow from which Miami never recovered.

“This is the start and finish of the ACC Tournament for us,” head coach J.D. Arteaga said. “We had hitters going out there after five days off, which we’re not used to. Around the fourth inning, we had some bad misses and had to go to our bullpen. It didn’t work out—we gave up seven runs there, and it’s tough to come back from that. We just never seemed to adjust to what they were trying to do to us.”

Now, with their ACC run abruptly over, the Hurricanes must wait and see if their up-and-down campaign will be enough to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament when selections are announced on Sunday.

The biggest difference in the matchup between the Hurricanes and Golden Bears was on the mound. Miami cycled through multiple pitchers over the first six innings, while Cal starter Oliver de la Torre (3-4) earned the win, tossing six scoreless innings, striking out seven, and allowing just two hits.

“He was locating his fastball and had a really good changeup,” Arteaga said when asked about de la Torre. “The hitters didn’t have much of a chance, and that’s what I mean when I said we never made an adjustment. We knew exactly what he was going to try to do. He was at the top of his game and made some good pitches. But we have to do a better job of adjusting and changing our approach a little bit.”

For the Hurricanes, starter Griffin Hugus (5-7) allowed four earned runs over three innings and took the loss. Miami’s bats also struggled throughout the contest and never found a rhythm at the plate—until catcher Tanner Smith put the Hurricanes on the board with a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh. That would be all the Canes could muster, as the game was called an inning early due to the 10-run rule.

“He’s a battler and going to compete regardless,” Arteaga said of Hugus. “We started to see some really bad misses with back-to-back hitters in the fourth inning. We didn’t use much of the back end of our bullpen this past weekend because we had three blowouts either way. We walked some guys, gave up some base hits, and it snowballed from there.”

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