For seven innings on Thursday, it looked like the same old story for Florida State. The Noles only had one extra-base hit and did not have a knock with runners in scoring position. On the mound, Wes Mendes posted a zero in five of his six innings, but Miami tagged him for four in the fourth, putting the Noles in what felt like an insurmountable hole. Link Jarrett read the room and decided to initially save his best bullpen arms, trotting out Cade O’Leary and Kevin Mebil as the first two arms to relieve Mendes.
However, one thing about this FSU team is that they will not go quietly into the night. Throughout the year, Jarrett’s 2026 team had multiple chances to roll over, but continued to fight. Now, trailing 6-1 and down to their final five outs, Florida State made its push.
John Stuetzer ambushed the first pitch of his at-bat and pulled a solo homer to left, the first extra-base hit for the Seminoles since Carns’ long ball in the second. In the ensuing at-bat, Dowd joined the party, as he got ahead 3-1 and smashed a solo shot to right as Florida State’s top two hitters labeled back-to-back jacks to cut the deficit to three.
Trailing 6-3 heading into the bottom of the ninth, Florida State put on its rally caps. Gabe Fraser began the frame with a walk, and Ben Barrett singled, allowing the speedy shortstop to move up 180 feet, as the Noles had runners on the corners with nobody out. In the ensuing at-bat, Carter McCulley labeled a 399-foot bomb to center field, which just stayed in the park, but brought Fraser in to score.
However, Eli Putnam, who pinch hit in the nine-hole, did not miss his pitch and crushed a first-pitch fastball to tie the game at six. Putnam has been much maligned, but he answered the bell when his team needed it most to send this game to extras.
As the game went to the tenth, Jarrett decided to go for the win and used his highest-leverage arm with John Abraham sidelined: Chris Knier. The righty picked up where he left off the last month, striking out the deadly duo of Williams and Sosa, and inducing a weak groundout to retire the side, sending the Noles back to the plate with a chance to win in extras.
Brody DeLamielleure did his job to get the rally started, fisting a softly-hit single into left to begin the frame, extending his hitting streak to 15 games, and allowing Jarrett to pinch run with Chase Williams. The speedy outfielder moved up to second on a passed ball, as the Noles had a runner in scoring position with nobody out. However, after Carns struck out, Williams inexplicably tried to take third on the pitcher and was thrown out trying to steal. The base running errors did not end there. Cmeyla walked, but with Fraser ahead in the count 2-1, he thought the ball was past the catcher and tried to steal second. However, the ball never got away, and the catcher was also caught stealing, as the Noles recorded two outs on the base paths with a chance to win.
But it did not matter. Knier kept rolling in the top half of the eleventh and turned a tied game over to the bottom of the order in the home half. After a Ben Barrett single and two gone in the inning, Putnam’s stellar day at the plate continued, and he kept the game alive with a single. In the next at-bat, Stuetzer went down 1-2, but was hit by a pitch to load the bases and bring up Dowd. Miami head coach J.D. Arteaga decided to play the numbers game and made a pitching change to bring on a lefty. The only issue was that he was a freshman. The gamble did not pay off, and four balls later, Barrett touched home on a walk-off walk to steal a 7-6 victory for Florida State.
Stating the obvious, Florida State had to have this game. Losing a Mendes start while originally not getting into UM’s bullpen after Rob Evans went seven innings would have been disastrous. Once the game was tied, Jarrett could ill-afford to use Knier and not come home with a W. But most of the buttons the head coach pressed paid off. Barrett went 3-5 with the winning scored and reached base in the ninth and 11th. The same goes for Putnam, who came off the bench and went 2-2 with the biggest swing of the game. The Nole lineup strung together 13 hits and walked five times as they pounded on the door all night. Florida State won this game because of an edge in depth and an edge in the dugout. That will be the recipe for the team moving forward.
All the way back in the first, Mendes started his day by retiring Jake Ogden, who stoked the rivalry flames with his comments earlier in the week, before working around a one-out baserunner with back-to-back strikeouts to post a zero. In the second, the lefty needed only nine pitches to fire a perfect frame, while adding two more punchouts to his ledger.
The Noles went down in order in the bottom of the first, but opened the scoring in the home half of the second. Hunter Carns got ahead in the count 2-0 and took an outside fastball the other way to deposit a solo homer over the right-field fence. FSU put another baserunner on with a Nathan Cmeyla walk, but a double play ended the inning.
Miami threatened in the third as a lead-off single and one-out double from Ogden put a runner on second and third. However, Mendes found a way to get out of it. After getting ahead 0-2 on Max Galvin, UM’s two-hole hitter shot a lineout right at the LHP, who caught it easily and fired to third to double off the runner and end the frame.
After the Noles could not capitalize on the momentum in the bottom of the third, the Hurricanes broke through in the fourth. A single through the left side that could have been fielded by Cal Fisher, and a base knock off the end of the bat put two on with nobody out. In the ensuing at-bat, Alonzo Alvarez flipped the game on its head with a three-run homer before UM added another run in the frame to make it 4-1. FSU attempted a response as Brayden Dowd and Cmeyla reached, but were left on. In the bottom of the fifth, the Seminoles once again had two men on base, and a sac-but put them both in scoring position, but a strikeout and 103-MPH groundout kept the deficit at three.
Mendes stranded a runner in scoring position in the sixth, and Jarrett ended his night after that. He continued to fight against a powerful lineup that kept putting runners on base, and getting six innings with John Abraham out for the series is a massive deal for FSU. But his Achilles’ heel, the big inning, got him at the worst time, and even though he put up a zero in five of his six frames, the Seminoles could not afford to allow a crooked number.
Jarrett’s first call out of the bullpen was the inconsistent Cade O’Leary in the seventh. Unfortunately for Florida State, they got the erratic version of the flame-throwing righty. Two free passes and a hit by pitch loaded the bases with nobody out ahead of Derek Williams and Alex Sosa. Kevin Mebil was then summoned to work out of the mess, and he did his best. The lefty induced Williams into a double play, although a run did score, and had Sosa down to his final strike, but the Hurricane cleanup hitter was able to get another weakly hit ball to drop, allowing another to score and putting Florida State down, 6-1.
