Florida State Baseball remains undefeated with 8-2 win over Western Carolina
Cam Leiter wasn’t as dominant as he was on Opening Day, but he was plenty good enough.
The Florida State offense didn’t get a ton of big hits, but it got enough. And the Florida State Seminoles improved to 4-0 on the season with an 8-2 win over Western Carolina on Friday night at Dick Howser Stadium.
After an almost perfect outing in his FSU debut last weekend, Leiter struggled some with his control against the Catamounts, walking three, hitting a batter and having a number of three-ball counts. But when it was all said and done, the sophomore right-hander still had a good outing for the Seminoles, striking out eight and allowing just four hits and one earned run in five innings of work.
Sophomore Ben Barrett then pitched for the first time in 2024 and worked three scoreless innings to preserve the lead, and transfer Noah Short closed out the game by recording the final three outs of the ninth — the last coming on a terrific diving catch by freshman shortstop Cal Fisher in shallow left field.
As for the offense, Florida State had base-runners all night. The Seminoles collected 10 hits, walked six times and were also hit three times, but they were just 2-of-11 with runners in scoring position, including 0-for-4 with the bases loaded.
Still, the offense did more than enough to pick up the win.
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Sophomore Cam Smith had three hits (all singles) and was hit by a pitch, and Jaime Ferrer had two hits — a double off the center-field fence and the other a swinging bunt that went about 20 feet.
But the biggest knock of the night came from transfer second baseman Drew Faurot, who bombed a 417-foot homer well over the screen in right field in the bottom of the sixth to all but ice the game for the Seminoles.
Faurot also had a double and was one of seven FSU players who scored at least one run.
The Seminoles also scored two runs on wild pitches and another on an RBI groundout after a wild pitch advanced Smith to third base.
McGwire Holbrook, DeAmez Ross and James Tibbs all added RBIs for FSU, which will start sophomore left-hander Jamie Arnold on Saturday afternoon in Game 2 of the three-game series. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m.
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