Baseball Drops Final game of Series to Florida state

April 26, 1998

CLEMSON, S.C. – Red-shirt freshman right-hander Nick Stocks allowed no earned runs and Kevin Cash went 3-for-3 as 10th-ranked Florida State downed fourth-ranked Clemson 7-2 at Tiger Field on Sunday, April 26. The Seminoles won only its second game in 12 tries at Tiger Field since joining the ACC.

Florida State (40-14, 15-4) upped its ACC lead to two games, one in the loss column, over Clemson (40-8, 12-5) with the win. Stocks (5-1), who entered the game with a minuscule 1.57 ERA, gave up eight hits, two unearned runs, and five walks while striking out eight in 7.0 innings. Chris Chavez pitched the final two innings, allowing Clemson only one hit.

Tiger starter Skip Browning (5-3) was relieved in the top of the second and took the loss in only 1.0 innings of work. He allowed only one (unearned) run on Senior Day, as Clemson ended its regular season home schedule at 32-4. Clemson lost its first home game of the season to East Carolina and last home game to Florida State, and went 32-2 in between. The Tigers also lost its first game against a top-25 team in seven games.

The Seminoles took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a Browning wild pitch and took a 4-0 lead in the fourth on back-to-back singles by Karl Jernigan and Jose Zabala.

The Tigers cut the lead in half in the bottom of the fourth on two bases loaded walks by Stocks. Clemson had the bases loaded in the inning with no outs, but could only manage the two runs on the free passes. The Tigers ended the day leaving 13 runners on base and going 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position after entering the game hitting .374 with runners in scoring position.

The Noles added a run in the fifth on an RBI single by Cash, and two more in the eighth on an RBI triple by Cash and a RBI groundout by Brett Groves. Cash ended the day a perfect 3-for-3 with two runs, two RBIs, and a walk.

Clemson was led at the plate by Brian Ellis, Justin Singleton, and Casey Stone, who all had two hits apiece.

The Tigers will be off for exams until Sunday when they travel to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech on Sunday at 1:30 PM.

Florida State      0 1 0   3 1 0   0 2 0 -   7  8  1Clemson            0 0 0   2 0 0   0 0 0 -   2  9  1

Win – Stocks (5-1) Loss – Browning (5-3) 2B – M. Diaz (6), Ellis (10), Bultmann (17), Singleton (3), Roper (6) 3B – Cash (3) Time: 2:50 Attendance: 4,718