Seminoles, 'Canes hook up again

Florida State gets home field, but draws a difficult and all-too-familiar foe for this weekend's Super Regional.

By BRIAN LANDMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 30, 2000

The Florida State Seminoles have the Miami Hurricanes right where they want 'em.

As expected, the Seminoles were named Monday a Super Regional host, giving them the home-field advantage, and the inside track to reach Omaha, against their archrivals in a rematch of last year's College World Series championship game.

"It should probably be the most exciting (home) weekend that I can remember," said coach Mike Martin, who has been at FSU 21 years. "The fact that it's Miami and Florida State and the stakes are as high as they are, that in itself is enough to get anybody excited. The fact that they beat us for the national championship last year, well, that was a year ago. Now, we're playing with the right to go back."

Joining FSU as Super Regional hosts are South Carolina, Stanford, Houston, Clemson, LSU, Georgia Tech and Texas. Every team but Texas was one of the eight national seeds for the tournament. (Texas upset No. 7 national seed Arizona State.) The winners advance to the CWS, which begins June9.

Miami coach Jim Morris had no complaints about his team making the trek north.

"They're the higher seed. They're a national seed. They beat us four out of six this year. They deserve to host a Super Regional," he said of the Seminoles, the No. 6 national seed in the 64-team tournament. "I expected to go to Tallahassee."

He admitted that he held out a bit of hope that the baseball committee might keep his team at home because it swept through its regional in three games, winning by a combined 44-14, while FSU needed to fight its way through the losers bracket. But even when it meant accepting a less lucrative bid (as it did for Clemson, for example), the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee consistently favored the nationally seeded team.

The best two-of-three series begins at 7 p.m. Friday at Dick Howser Stadium, where the Seminoles have not lost a series this year and are 34-4. That includes a 3-0 record against the Hurricanes.

"Any time you can play in your own stadium, you feel much more comfortable than having to go on the road," Martin said. "It's an advantage to play at home, there's no doubt about it. Anybody who acts like it's not, they're kidding themselves."

In the last 20 years, FSU is 33-27-1 at home against Miami, a .549 winning percentage. In the same span, it's 22-27-1 (.375) in Miami. The rivals also have met 10 times in the post-season with each winning five; FSU is 1-1 at home and 0-2 at Miami.

Martin, however, added that past performance doesn't mean much with the stakes so high. Especially against Miami. In the past five years, the Seminoles have lost a three-game series at home just three times.

All three were to the 'Canes (1997, '98 and '99).

"We have 20 out of our 25 guys returning that played in the series (there) in '99 and a lot of them played them the year before and even some from the year before that, so they have experienced some success up there," Morris said.

Although FSU won all three home meetings against the 'Canes this year, the first lasted 17 innings, a record for both schools, before the Seminoles scored three runs to eke out a 14-13 win.

"We know Miami is capable of coming in here and winning the Super Regional and advancing to Omaha," Martin said, "so we know we have to play very well in order to go to Omaha."

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