No. 6 Tigers Complete Sweep Of No. 4 Florida State With 7-4 Victory In Baseball Series Finale

May 8, 2000

CLEMSON, S.C. – The sixth-ranked Clemson Tigers earned a 7-4 victory to complete the three-game sweep of fourth-ranked Florida State Monday night at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in front of 3,916 fans. The Tigers’ win was the 40th of the season, the 15th straight year Clemson has finished with at least 40 wins.

Florida State scored in the first inning on a Ryan Barthelemy double that scored Marshall McDougall, who had reached on a fielder’s choice and then advanced to second with a steal.

The Seminoles held the 1-0 lead until the bottom of the third inning when Clemson went up by a 2-1 count. Mike Calitri walked to start the inning and then Justin Singleton doubled to right. Calitri scored on an error by the right fielder. Casey Stone moved Singleton over to third with a sacrifice. He later scored on a ground out by Patrick Boyd.

Florida State evened the score in the top of the fourth when Barthelemy scored on a sacrifice fly by designated hitter John Halliday. But Seminole hopes at a run fell flat when the Tigers scored three runs on just one hit in the bottom half of the inning.

After a ground out by Henri Stanley to start the inning, Ryan Riley was hit by a pitch and then Brian Ellis walked. Calitri grounded to the first baseman who went to second to nab Riley but a potential double play was avoided when Riley beat out the throw. Singleton walked to load the bases for Stone, who singled in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in game two. Stone lined a hit into shallow center field to score Riley and Calitri. When Florida State center fielder Karl Jernigan misplayed the Stone hit, Singleton scored and Stone advanced to second. Boyd struck out swinging to end the inning with the Tigers leading 5-2.

Clemson added a single run in the fifth on Jeff Baker’s sixth home run of the season and another run in the sixth when back-to-back sacrifices by Singleton and Stone, the latter a sacrifice fly, scored Ellis to put the Tigers up 7-2.

Florida State scored single runs in each of the sixth and eighth innings to pull within 7-4 going into the ninth inning, but Clemson closer Nick Glaser put together a one-two-three inning for the Tiger win. He also was given the save, his 13th of the year.

Scott Berney got the win to improve to 8-4 after going 0-4 in his last six starts. He allowed three runs in 5.2 innings. It was his first win since March 24 against The Citadel. Jon McDonald got the loss to fall to 9-3.

Stone finished the game just 2-for-2, but in this two other plate appearances had a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly and a total of three RBIs. He is 11-for-17 in his last four games with nine RBIs.

Clemson won 8-7 in the series opener on Saturday and made the sweep possible with a 5-4 victory Sunday night. A combined crowd of 13,163 fans watched the three games. The Tigers, winners of 13 of 15 games vs. Florida State in Clemson since the Seminoles joined the ACC, improved to 40-12 and 15-6 in the ACC, just one game behind first-place Georgia Tech. Florida State fell to 41-12 and 13-8.

The sweep by the Tigers was the first against Florida State since Miami, who eventually won the 1999 College World Series, handed the Seminoles three straight defeats April 23-25, 1999. Clemson will travel to Lynchburg, VA to take on Liberty Thursday at 4:00 PM in its next action. Florida State closes out its regular season at North Carolina beginning Friday.