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Trey Beard slams the door as FSU holds on for 2-1 win over Coastal Carolina

On3 imageby: Corey Clark05/31/26Corey_Clark

It took roughly 22 hours and the top two starting pitchers, but the Florida State baseball team stayed alive with a 2-1 win over Coastal Carolina on Sunday morning in an elimination game of the NCAA Tallahassee Regional.

The game was stopped on Saturday evening with the Seminoles holding a 2-1 lead heading to the sixth inning. And, thanks to Trey Beard, that’s exactly how the game ended.

Beard, who’s been the No. 2 starter for FSU all year, pitched all four innings on Sunday to close out the win. He struck out nine and allowed just one hit — a bloop single to center in the top of the ninth inning — to give the Seminoles their first win of the 2026 postseason.

The lefty baffled the Coastal hitters with an array of change-ups, breaking balls and a low-90s fastball.

He allowed just two baserunners in his outing. The first was a leadoff walk to the first batter he faced on Sunday, and the last was the aforementioned bloop single. Other than that, Beard struck out nine of the 12 batters he faced. The other three outs were a weak grounder to third, a sacrifice bunt and a lineout to short.

“That’s as good as he can throw,” FSU head coach Link Jarrett said. “Started off with a walk … and then he gets two punchouts and I thought that let him settle into the outing. And it seems like the longer he goes, it seems like he starts to settle and get a better feel of the slider, curveball, change.”

With ace Wes Mendes starting the game on Saturday, the two FSU starting pitchers combined for 17 strikeouts in eight innings. Brodie Purcell, who took over for Mendes after the first delay on Saturday, pitched a scoreless inning as well with a strikeout.

All told, FSU pitchers struck out 18, walked two and allowed just three hits.

The Seminoles’ offense wasn’t much better than Coastal’s, but it was good enough to get the win.

Nathan Cmeyla’s RBI double in the fourth and Cal Fisher’s solo home run in the fifth were the only runs FSU scored in the win. Fisher also had a double on Sunday, a rocket off the screen in right, and now has four hits so far in this postseason.

“Good to see Fisher have some good at-bats,” Jarrett said. “That guy, there’s not a better person. There’s not somebody that works harder at this. For him to hit the home run and then hit the double later in the game, that was beautiful for him.”

The Seminoles were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position in the game, including 0-for-3 on Sunday.

But because of the combination of Mendes, Purcell and Beard, their season is still alive.

They’ll play again on Sunday evening against the loser of the Northern Illinois-St. John’s game.

“We were fortunate,” Jarrett said. “Our back is absolutely against the wall.”

Meanwhile, Coastal Carolina’s season comes to an end. The 2025 College World Series finalists dealt with some significant injuries on the mound this season and then had to deal with an enormous delay on Saturday, part of it because of a tarp issue that made first base deemed unplayable in the middle of the afternoon.

Head coach Kevin Schnall was not happy with how Saturday was handled.

“It was mismanaged,” he said. “But that’s all I’m going to say about that. Utterly mismanaged.”

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