May 28, 2004
SALEM, Va. (AP) – Clifton Remole drove in four runs with a pair of two-run doubles Friday night and Georgia Tech beat Florida State 13-5 to advance to the championship round of the ACC tournament.
The top-seeded Yellow Jackets (41-17) scored seven times in the second inning and extended their winning streak to 20 games, the longest in the nation. They are one win away from defending their ACC championship.
Last year, they did it by winning a triple-header on the final day. This time, they could do it by winning just four games. The Seminoles (39-20), meanwhile, will have to win three more times to be the champions under a new format that favors the last survivor in the winners’ bracket.
Remole’s smash down the right-field line was the Yellow Jackets’ seventh hit of the second inning against Eddie Cannon (8-6). The first six were consecutive singles that followed a strikeout to start the inning.
The rally wiped out a 1-0 lead for Florida State, and it became 8-1 an inning later when Gibbs Chapman let an easy line drive glance off his glove for a two-base error, Mike Trapani singled him to third and Tyler Greene singled him home, the Jackets’ 11th hit against Cannon.
Florida State coach Mike Martin then brought in Matt DiBlasi, who quieted the Yellow Jackets’ bats until the eighth to keep his team in it.
Then the Yellow Jackets clinched it, scoring five more times with Remole’s second two-run double the biggest of four more hits.
Georgia Tech finished with 15 hits, the Seminoles nine.
Florida State scored once in the fourth and twice in the fifth against Andrew Kown, but Jordan Crews (2-0) came on to get Matt Sauls to hit into an inning-ending double play in the fifth and closed out the game.
Crews worked 4 2-3 innings, allowing two hits and a walk.
