Brendan McKay homered for the second consecutive day but the No. 4 Louisville baseball team was unable to overcome a slow start dropping a 6-2 decision to Florida State in front of a crowd of 8,843 on Friday afternoon at Louisville Slugger Field during the final day of preliminary action at the 2017 ACC Championship.
With the loss, the No. 1 seeded Cardinals (47-10) ended their pursuit of an ACC title finishing with a 1-1 record in Pool A, while the Seminoles (37-20) won each of their two pool-play games to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round where they will face Duke (Pool D winner) at noon ET. Miami (Pool C winner) will meet up against either North Carolina or NC State in Saturday’s second semifinal at 4 p.m. Sunday’s championship game is scheduled for a noon first pitch.
McKay was 2-for-4 with a single to go with his 17th home run of the season, including his second in as many days at the ACC Championship. The Darlington, Pennsylvania native raised his batting average to .363 overall to go with 52 RBI, .705 slugging percentage and .481 on-base percentage this season.
Aside from McKay, Louisville struggled to find its form against Florida State lefthander Tyler Holton, who limited the Cardinals to just four hits and only one earned run while striking out 10 in a victorious eight innings of work. Junior righthander Kade McClure took the loss for Louisville and dropped to 7-3 on the season after allowing four runs on six hits with six strikeouts and four walks in 4.2 innings.
Florida State started quickly Friday delivering a pair of runs in the first inning. Taylor Walls plated the first run of the game scoring on a wild pitch by McClure before Quincy Nieporte drove Dylan Busby home moments later with a RBI double down the right field line.
The Cardinals cut into the margin with a run in the third inning after Jake Snider scored from third on a RBI groundout by Josh Stowers. However, the Seminoles answered with two runs in the fourth inning when Matt Henderson’s single through the right side scored Cal Raleigh and Drew Mendoza for a 4-1 cushion.
Louisville narrowed the margin in the sixth when McKay led off the inning by sending a 2-2 offering from Holton over the wall in right center and onto the concourse more than 400-feet away. McKay also homered in Thursday’s win over Notre Dame connecting for a grand slam and earning the victory on the mound in the 10-3 triumph over the Fighting Irish.
The Seminoles ended any chance of a comeback by the Cardinals when Jackson Lueck connected on a two-run double down the right field line to score Walls and Busby. Lueck, Walls and Busby finished with two hits each as FSU had a 10-4 edge in hits in Friday’s game.
No. 4 Louisville will learn its NCAA Championship assignment with the announcement of the field of 64 teams on Monday at noon ET on ESPN2. The 16 Regional hosts for the 2017 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship will be announced starting at 8:30 p.m., ET on Sunday (May 28) on the NCAA Baseball social channels — @NCAACWS and https://www.facebook.com/NCAACWS.
Fans can follow Louisville baseball on Twitter (@UofLBaseball) at http://twitter.com/uoflbaseball and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ulbaseball.
Garett Wall
Assistant Sports Information Director