ACC Baseball News & Notes: The Seminoles are Still Unbeaten

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One month into the college baseball season, the Atlantic Coast Conference continues to put up some impressive numbers. For instance, the league has a non-conference record of 127-31. The league already has seven wins against teams ranked in the Top 25 polls. Against other Power-5 leagues, their record is 19-11. The Florida State Seminoles are the only team that is unbeaten at 11-0 as the week got started. Their only mid-week game was cancelled vs Florida Gulf Coast. They will get back to action today vs New Orleans. Here is more from the league.

The first RPI rankings were released on Monday. The ACC led all Power-5 conferences with 12 teams ranked inside the Top 100. The Clemson Tigers are at #1, followed by Duke at #13, Florida State at #15, Notre Dame at #18, Virginia at #20, and Wake Forest at #21. As you can see, all of these teams are ranked inside the Top 25. In the D 1 national poll, six teams are ranked with Wake Forest still sitting at the top of the poll. Clemson is at #10, Duke is at #12, Virginia is at #13, North Carolina State is at #14, and North Carolina is at #16. The Seminoles are one of five teams without a loss so far this year. The others are TCU, UC Irvine, and Louisiana Tech. Last weekend, FSU took part in the First Pitch Invitational where they defeated three teams, Michigan State, Illinois, and Western Michigan by a combined score of 32-12.

This is the first weekend of league play. Matchups look like this, Wake Forest (12-1) hosts Duke (11-1), North Carolina State (9-2) hosts Boston College (8-3), Virginia Tech (8-3) hosts Notre Dame (10-2), North Carolina (12-2) hosts Pittsburgh (8-1) and Miami (8-5) hosts Virginia (13-1).

One of the better defensive teams in the league is the BC Eagles. Through the first three weeks of the season, the Eagles have a fielding percentage of .987. This is helped by the strong pitching the team has received from #1 starter John West, A.J. Colarusso, and Tyler Mudd. Mudd has been really good out of the Eagles bullpen. He has allowed only 4.26 hits in the nine innings he has thrown. That ranks third in the league. The staff has been a strike-throwing group so far, averaging 12.08 strikeouts per nine which includes 18 punchouts in their mid-week win over UNCW. LF Cameron Leary hit two more HRs and drove in four in the 14-7 win.

The Louisville Cardinals put up some numbers last weekend in their sweep of Youngstown State. The Cardinals bats drove in 38 runs, including 19 on Friday night in a 19-1 win. The Cardinals will continue non-conference play this weekend as they host Northwestern for three games. So far, the ACC has had the better of it with a 9-1 record vs Big-10 teams.

One of the better bats in the league belongs to Miami’s Daniel Cuvet. He is hitting .522, with 24 hits, seven HR, 48 total bases, and a 1.043 slugging percentage. In the Hurricanes’ 7-6 win over Stonehill earlier this week, Cuvet went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored. He did leave 4 runners on base. Miami had all they could handle from Stonehill. Down 6-1 in the seventh, they rallied to put up a five-spot in the seventh and then pushed across another run in the eighth to get the win.

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (7-4) have lost three in a row after losing both games last weekend to Georgia and then a mid-week game to Northeastern. The two losses to the Bulldogs were both two-run games (11-9 on Sunday, 3-1 on Saturday). In the loss to the Huskies, Northeastern pitchers allowed only five hits and struck out seven Yellow Jackets hitters in getting the 7-0 win. Carson Ballard (1-1) took the loss going four, giving up seven hits, and four runs of which two were earned.

Here is how good Florida State has been so far. Their team batting average is .367 which is third best in the nation. They ranked fifth in the country in sac-files with 12 and the pitching staff has been averaging 14 strikeouts a game which is second-best in the country. James Tibbs III has 21 RBI which is good for second in the league and fifth nationally. He has also gone yard six times.

If there is an early season surprise it would have to be the Pittsburgh Panthers. They just won the first-ever Las Vegas College Baseball Classic. They scored 19 runs on Friday vs the Oklahoma Sooners, then did it again on Sunday in the championship game vs the California Golden Bears. This weekend is a road test for sure vs UNC.

Another team that won an in-season tournament was Virginia. They won the Jax College Tournament by beating Auburn, #18 Iowa, and Wichita State. In the finals, they took two of three from Massachusetts. The back end of their bullpen has been up to the task so far with five saves in their first 11 wins.

The ACC Player of the Week is North Carolina State’s Alex Makarewicz. He batted .455 for the Wolfpack in a 5-0 week. He had 10 hits which led the team, four doubles, 13 RBI, 20 total bases, and six extra-base hits. He had four multi- hits games for the week. For the season to date, he leads the team with 24 RBI, 39 total bases, 19 hits, and 10 extra-base hits.

The ACC Pitcher of the Week is Duke’s Jonathan Santucci. He improved to 3-1 with a 0.00 ERA. Last Friday vs Arkon, he went six innings, allowed one hit, while striking out 14 Zipps hitters. He walked only two and the lone hit was a single. He has now pitched 17 innings striking out 31 hitters which leads the conference with zero runs given up. Opponents are hitting just .169 off the left-hander.

Next week, we’ll be back with more from ACC Baseball.