May 17, 2007
ATLANTA – Bryan Henry scattered two runs on six hits over six innings and Jason Stidham collected four hits and drove in four runs to lead No. 3 Florida State (44-9, 22-6 ACC) to a 17-2 victory over Georgia Tech (31-21, 15-12 ACC) Thursday night at Russ Chandler Stadium.
Stidham went 4-for-5 with a double, home run, two runs and four RBI to lead the Seminoles’ offense in the ACC series opener while Tony Thomas, Jr. hit his league-leading 39th and 40th doubles of the season while helping Florida State snap an eight-game losing streak to the Jackets.
Henry improved to 14-0 on the season with his strong pitching performance, while Tech starter Ryan Turner (5-4) took the loss, giving up seven runs on seven hits in four innings of work.
Florida State took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Mark Hallberg scored on Travis Anderson’s sacrifice fly, and the Seminoles added a pair of unearned runs in the third after Jack Rye and Anderson reached on a pair of throwing errors by shortstop Michael Fisher before scoring on a two-run single by Jason Stidham to push the score to 3-0.
A pair of RBI doubles by Tony Thomas, Jr. and Stidham, as well as a two-run single by Jack Rye, highlighted the Seminoles’ four-run fourth inning before the Jackets cracked the scoreboard in the fifth inning when Wally Crancer hit his eighth home run of the season – a two-run shot – over the right-center field wall, making the score 7-2.
The `Noles answered with four runs in the top of the sixth with a sacrifice fly by Mark Gildea, an RBI single by Ruairi O’Connor, and a two-run double by Thomas, Jr. before Stidham hit his fourth home run of the season over the right field wall to push the score to 12-2 in the seventh inning.
A two-run double by Posey extended Florida State’s lead to 12 runs in the eighth inning, and the Seminoles added three runs in the ninth on a bases-loaded walk and a fielders’ choice groundout for the final 17-2 margin.
The Jackets and Seminoles will continue the series at 7 p.m. Friday, with David Duncan taking the mound for Georgia Tech. The game can be followed on SportSouth and heard on WREK-Radio (91.1 Fm in Atlanta / www.wrek.org). Live stats for the entire series can be followed at www.ramblinwreck.com.
