TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WALB) – The first round of the NCAA Regionals is now in the books. The winners bracket is set in the Tallahassee region. Florida State will face UCF in a battle of former assistants. Noles head coach Link Jarrett and Knights head coach Rich Wallace, long-time friends and coworkers. Before returning to his alma mater in Orlando, Wallace served as Jarrett’s assistant coach here in Tallahassee.
Now his two teams are fighting to avoid a knockout game. When asked after the game about the potential of facing Wallace, Jarrett said, “There’s Rich, who’s with us at Notre Dame and here, it’s a toss-up, I don’t know, you guys go figure that out.” I hope they go 17 or 18 innings and burn out their bullpen and the guys wear themselves out. We’ll see someone tomorrow.”
Florida State defeated Stetson 7-2 in the opening game. Heading into Friday’s matchup, Jarrett faced a struggling starting rotation and bullpen, leaving the question of when to pitch star pitcher Jamie Arnold. Jarrett said he and his staff talked for days and finally decided to leave Arnold for Saturday, leaving the door open for Carson Dorsey.
Earlier this week, Jarret said: “We believe including Dorsey in the first game is the best way to manage the event. That should give some of the guys, as we work and organize that game, a chance to recover. We hope Jamie can give us, no matter who he is against, we hope he can give us a good deep start. That may or may not happen, these things usually don’t go as scheduled. You hope he can give us a good start, that will give a couple of arms a chance to recover a little. That will help you take advantage or not get stressed when you are staffed for a few games in a row.”
The left-hander had his best performance of the season. He pitched 8 ⅔ innings allowing two runs. His career-high pitches saved the bullpen for the rest of the weekend.
“It means a lot that they still trust me after some bad starts,” Dorsey said. “It’s also good for me to know and I already knew I had what I had to deliver.” Link Jarrett said: “They really improved this place, it started with Dorsey and Williams’ home run in the first inning. He just fueled the fire of the game and got into it, making sure everything was under control with what we were doing. I’m proud of the way we played, I’m proud of this team. They had to step in here and deliver and respond, we had to make a decision on who to throw. “We knew Dorsey was tough enough to step in and open up this region, and he helped us get into this.”
UCF advanced to winning games in an 8-7 thriller against Alabama. The game was tied 7-7 in the top of the ninth. Andrew Sundean, who has been battling a wrist injury all season, had a two-out pinch-hit RBI double to break the tie. Kris Sosnowski finished off the match for the Knights. The redshirt sophomore pitched a two-out hit to secure the win. The victory is the first tournament victory for the Knights since 2012.
Senior right-hander Ben Vespi will take the mound for the Knights on Saturday. He is 4-3 with a 4.44 ERA on the season. Florida State will turn to Jamie Arnold, who is 10-3 on the season with a 2.45 ERA.
Due to bad weather, the knockout match scheduled for 12:00 p.m. was delayed until 3:30 p.m. First pitch for Florida State and UCF is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.
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