Florida State eliminates UNC from MCWS, to face Tennessee - ESPN

OMAHA, Neb. — Connor Hults felt a whole lot better walking off the mound at the end of the game Tuesday than he did three days earlier.

Hults pitched 4⅓ innings of shutout relief to thwart North Carolina's comeback bid and Jaxson West and Max Williams hit back-to-back homers in the ninth for insurance as Florida State beat the Tar Heels 9-5 in an elimination game at the Men's College World Series on Tuesday.

FSU took a three-run lead into the bottom of the ninth against Tennessee in its MCWS opener Saturday. A check-swing call that didn't go the Seminoles' way — it would have ended the game if it had — and the single by Dylan Dreiling that followed produced a 12-11 walk-off win for the Volunteers.

Hults was the guy who threw the pitch to Dreiling, the only batter he faced.

«Hults' response — four-plus innings? Amazing,» Seminoles coach Link Jarrett said.

The junior left-hander relied on a sharp fastball and mixed it effectively with off-speed pitches, something he had spoken about with pitching coach Micah Posey.

«Being able to locate the fastball in any count was new to my game,» Hults said. «I haven't done it in a few weeks. It's there. But me and coach Posey had been talking about mixing some more fastball and changeups to start getting hitters off the curveball. I was able to locate some fastballs and expand on my off-speed when needed, and that worked out in our favor.»

When he finished the eighth, he had no doubt in his mind he would go back out for the ninth, and he let Jarrett know it.

"'Don't even think about it,'" Hults told Jarrett, according to the coach. «There were some other words mixed in there. I'm so happy for him. It's hard to walk off that field the way it went [Saturday] night. You guys all saw it