The No. 2 Louisville baseball team opened its final series of the regular season with a 12-9 loss to Florida State on Thursday night at Jim Patterson Stadium.
The visiting Seminoles (34-20, 13-14 ACC) overcame a 7-3 deficit by outscoring the Cardinals (46-8, 23-5) 9-2 over the final five innings of the game. With Thursday’s result, Louisville suffered its second straight loss marking the third time this season the Cardinals have lost back-to-back games.
Josh Stowers paced the offense for Louisville as the sophomore outfielder was 2-for-5 with a three-run homer, while Colin Lyman was 3-for-5 with a RBI double and a run scored. Drew Ellis added a three-run homer, Devin Mann was 2-of-5 with a double, one RBI and one run scored and Brendan McKay added a double and scored twice.
The Seminoles opened the scoring with a run in the first inning on a RBI sacrifice fly to right by Quincy Nieporte off McKay to score Taylor Walls. The Cardinals broke through in the second inning when Stowers belted a three-run homer off FSU righty Cole Sands. Following back-to-back one-out singles by Mann and Lyman, Stowers sent a 2-1 pitch over the wall in left center for his second home run this week and the fifth of the season.
After FSU evened the score with a two-out, two-run double down the left field line from Nieporte in the top of the third, Louisville answered with the three-run homer from Ellis in the bottom of the inning for a 6-3 advantage. Hairston started the scoring chance when he was hit by a 1-1 pitch and McKay followed with a walk before Ellis crushed a 1-0 offering, which landed on the roof of the pavilion atop the berm beyond the wall in left center for his 16th round-tripper of the season.
Louisville extended the lead in the fourth inning on a two-out RBI double from Colby Fitch to plate Tyler Fitzgerald. However, the Seminoles responded with a four-run fifth inning, including two unearned runs, to even the score at 7-7. Nieporte added to his great day at the plate with another two-out, two-run double down the left field line to send JC Flowers and Walls home. A fielding error by the Cardinals extended the inning and allowed Nieporte to score before Holton added a RBI single to plate Cal Raleigh.
Florida State regained the lead for good in the sixth inning when Walls scored on a two-out RBI single by Jackson Lueck off Louisville senior righty Jake Sparger. The Seminoles extended the advantage to 9-7 in the seventh when Cal Raleigh led off the inning with a solo home run to right field.
The Cardinals cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the seventh on a two-out RBI double to center by Lyman. Hairston singled and took second on a wild pitch before scoring on Lyman’s ground-rule two-bagger. That was as close as Louisville would get as the Seminoles followed with a three-run eighth inning on a two-run homer from Dylan Busby and a RBI single by Raleigh. UofL plated its final run of the game in the ninth inning on a RBI double from Devin Mann.
Louisville and Florida State will continue the weekend series Friday at 6 p.m., ET and admission is free at Jim Patterson Stadium.
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Garett Wall
Assistant Sports Information Director