Florida State’s normally reliable bullpen suffered a rare setback.
Devon Travis' RBI double staked FSU to an early lead.
On a day in which FSU made two errors, and a few more mental mistakes, the Seminoles couldn’t shut the door on Clemson on Friday.
Jon McGibbon smacked a walk-off, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning as Clemson rallied to defeat FSU 9-7 in the ACC Tournament.
The Seminoles (43-14) knew when they took the field on Friday that they would not be able to play in the ACC tournament championship game after Georgia Tech improved to 2-0 in pool play.
But FSU lit up Clemson starter Dominic Leone in the third inning and grabbed a 4-1 lead after Devon Travis’ RBI double and James Ramsey and Justin Gonzalez each had RBI singles.
Gonzalez added a home run in the fifth, his 10th of the season, to put FSU up 5-2.
Clemson (33-25) answered back with a pair of runs in the fifth to pull within 5-4.
Ramsey and Jayce Boyd appeared to give FSU plenty of cushion with back-to-back RBI singles in the eighth, extending the Seminoles’ lead back to 7-4.
But Gage Smith and then Bryant Holtmann ran into trouble in the eighth, forcing FSU to bring in Robert Benincasa.
He then allowed Spencer Kieboom to hit a two-run single that cut FSU’s lead to 7-6.
In the ninth, Phil Pohl and Mike Dunster had singles before McKibbon’s home run.
Benincasa had recorded 13 saves this season. He had allowed just two earned runs in 32 innings coming into the ACC tournament.
Boyd went 3 for 5. Ramsey, Gonzalez and Jose Brizuela each had two hits.
The bullpen’s performance hurt a solid effort from Brandon Leibrandt, who battled for 6.2 innings and allowed four runs – two earned – and had three strikeouts. Of the five hits he allowed, four were doubles.
FSU will play Virginia on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the final game of pool play for the Seminoles in the ACC tournament.
