Baseball Drops Dramatic NCAA Regional Championship to FAU
6/4/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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Tuscaloosa, Ala.-- In a thrilling NCAA Regional championship game, regional three-seed Florida Atlantic outlasted national No. 3 seed Alabama, winning 6-5 to advance to the NCAA Super Regionals. Florida Atlantic improves to 46-19 while Alabama ends its season at 51-15.
Trailing 5-4 in the top of the eighth, FAU’s Mike Valdes doubled down the right field line scoring L.J. Biernbaum to tie the game at five. It appeared as though FAU had taken the lead on a would be sacrifice fly from Shaen O’ Connor, but home plate umpire Ron Sebastian ruled out Jeremiah Creech for leaving left third base early leaving the game tied at five.
FAU refused to be denied however as Jeff Fiorentino drove in Derek Hutton with a single to right field for the game winning run ending the scoring at 6-5.
Tim McNab picked up the win for FAU improving his record to 3-2. Taylor Tankersley took the loss for the Tide dropping his record to 8-5.
Alabama placed eight players on the NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team. Florida Atlantic had four players on the team led MVP L.J. Biernbaum. The infield for the all-tournament team consisted of: catcher Jeremy Brown (UA), first base Rusty Brown (FAU), second base Peter Stonard (UA), third base Mike Cox (FAU) and shortstop Adam Pavkovich (UA). The outfield consisted of Biernbaum, Chad White (UA) and Gabe Somarriba (FAU). Starting pitchers for the team were Brent Carter (UA) and Jeffrey Norris (UA) while Taylor Tankersley (UA) was the all-tournament relief pitcher.
FAU took the first lead of the game in the third inning when shortstop Bobby Spano and Somarriba reached on infield singles and then scored on a two out single to left centerfield by Biernbaum.
Alabama answered back in the bottom of the third inning when Stonard lined a base hit just over the outstretched glove of FAU second baseman Hutton to score Travis Garner making the score 2-1.
Hearod continued Alabama’s comeback in the bottom of the fourth with a solo home run just inside the left field foul pole evening the score at two.
FAU would retake the lead in the fifth inning when Fiorentino hit a two-run home run off of Alabama reliever Jared Woodward making the score 4-2.
Hearod’s big game continued in the bottom of the sixth as he hit his second homer of the day, a towering three-run shot off of reliever Greg Eubanks, over the scoreboard to give Alabama a 5-4 lead.
That would be all the runs the Tide would score, however, as Jim Cooney and Tim McNab combined to hold the Tide to one hit over the last 3.1 innings of the game.
