FSU baseball wraps up fall ball with Garnet & Gold All-Star Game

Florida State baseball wrapped up their fall ball season with their annual seven-inning Garnet & Gold All-Star game followed by the home-run derby.

This year, Dick Howser Stadium welcomed some special guests, as former Seminoles now playing professionally, including Cal Raleigh, Cam Smith, James Tibbs III, and Jamie Arnold, among others, returned to their former home field to watch the action from the dugouts.

“If there’s anything I ask those players to relay, it’s the transition from the number of games we play, the workload, the travel, and what they endure, which is hard to explain … those guys are standing in front of you having just come out of that and can explain it and the physicality, our guys are still maturing and growing, but some of these guys are grown men that have aged and have been through it,” head coach Link Jarrett said ahead of the matchup on Oct. 29.

The teams were led by assistant coach Jack O’Reilly, who managed the Gold team, and graduate assistant Will MacLean, who led the Garnet team. The rosters were assembled based on position and skill, with right-handed pitcher Isaiah Shayter serving Jarrett’s commissioner’s pick to determine which team he would pitch for.

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Shayter ultimately took the mound for the Gold team in the bottom of the fifth, retiring the side with two strikeouts and a flyout.

“Coach [Micah] Posey dials this up to put them in situations that we could expect out of them in the spring,” assistant coach Brad Vanderglas said after the game. “Shayter coming in in that moment was huge, you talk MVP, you come in bases loaded, no outs, you get a ground ball double play, I mean, that really kind of put a halt to it.” 

The game heats up

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Cade O’Leary started on the mound with junior catcher Coy Clements as his battery mate for the Garnet team, and fifth year left-handed pitcher Kevin Mebil toed the rubber with sophomore catcher Marvin Montenegro behind the dish for the Gold team. 

The exhibition was offense-heavy from the opening inning. Montenegro brought in sophomore outfielder John Stuetzer to give the Gold team the initial lead before the Garnet team responded in the bottom half, stringing together three hits to take a 2-1 advantage.

Junior infielder Jace Estes showed off power at the plate, tying the game for the Gold team with a solo home run after not yet recording an official career longball as a Seminole. 

“Jace, from a physicality standpoint, he kind of knows who and what he is,” Vanderglas said. “He’s been a little drifty, he’s had some mechanical things, so over the course of the last couple weeks, we’ve brought these guys in to talk some development stuff to talk about swing decisions, to talk about leveraging counts, and Jace got a pitch to hit, stayed behind it, put a good swing on it.”

Gold finishes strong

The Gold team broke through in the sixth inning when Stuetzer launched a home run to take the lead and spark a rally. Montenegro followed with a triple to bring home another run before freshman outfielder Genson Veras sent a no-doubter over the left-field wall, extending the Gold team’s advantage to 9-4. The exhibition then transitioned into the Home Run Derby, which determined the final two innings of the contest.

With the contest shifting to a point-based format, the Garnet team had an opportunity to mount a comeback. However, both teams finished with two home runs apiece, leaving neither with an advantage in the derby as the Gold team maintained its lead through the final two innings.

The night concluded with a fireworks display, marking the end of baseball at Dick Howser Stadium until the spring season returns. FSU will open its regular season on Feb. 19 against the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Gia Ciaccio is a Staff Writer for the FSView & Florida Flambeau, the student-run, independent online news service for the FSU community. Email our staff at contact@fsview.com. 

This article originally appeared on FSU News: FSU baseball wraps up fall ball with Garnet & Gold All-Star Game