College Baseball Week 4 Recap: Out-of-Towners Struggle in L.A., ACC Offers First Conference Tests
As the weather starts to get just a little bit warmer and the college basketball postseason gets underway, the college baseball regular season is kicking into gear. We had another great week filled with action around the country, so let's take a look at the highlights.
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No. 2 Vandy, No. 22 TCU Can't Break Through in Los Angeles
No. 2 Vanderbilt and No. 22 TCU traveled to California this weekend to play a round-robin tournament of sorts, taking on No. 6 UCLA, USC and each other. Vandy was looking to make its first real statement of the season and TCU would have liked to climb the college baseball rankings with a couple big wins, but both teams left Los Angeles with 1-2 records.
UCLA and USC owned the weekend, with the Bruins picking up wins over the Commodores and Trojans, while USC took down TCU and also beat Vandy.
It's certainly not time to panic for No. 2 Vanderbilt, but the Dores had probably hoped to be a little better than 12-5 at this point in the season.
No. 12 Duke Bests No. 11 FSU in ACC Opener
Most conferences will begin league play next weekend, but the ACC started up a week early, with the best series coming from Durham, N.C., where No. 11 Florida State traveled to No. 12 Duke.
It was the Blue Devils who snagged two of the three contests from the Seminoles behind some great pitching in the first two games — both of Duke's wins came by one run before FSU broke through for a 10-2 victory on Sunday. Though it came at home, a Duke program which pushed eventual national champion Vanderbilt to three games in a Super Regional in 2019 passed its first big test of 2020.
Virginia Stuns No. 8 N.C. State
No. 8 North Carolina State opened its ACC slate with a bit of a sour taste in its mouth, after the Wolfpack lost their first conference series of the year at the hands of the Virginia Cavaliers.
UVA took the series opener on Friday and closed the weekend out with a huge 10-3 win on Sunday behind two home runs from Zack Gelof. A 12-4 record and series win over the Wolfpack should be enough to vault the Cavs into the Top 25 come Monday.
Player of the Week: Asa Lacy, Texas A&M
My POTW last week was New Mexico State's Nick Gonzalez, who is one of the best college bats available in the 2020 MLB Draft. This weekend, Gonzalez and NMSU traveled to College Station to take on Texas A&M, where they faced possibly the best college arm available in this year's Draft in Asa Lacy.
Lacy started the first game of the series and exited after an outing of 7 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 13 SO and 2 BB. He was pulled after throwing 99 pitches, but Lacy certainly had the stuff to keep the other Aggies out of the hit column for nine innings on Friday. Yet another dominant performance from a surefire Top 10 pick.
Play of the Week: William Simoneit, Wake Forest
Wake Forest hosted No. 3 Louisville to open its ACC schedule and was obviously outmatched in the series. However, thanks to the late-game heroics of William Simoneit on Saturday, the Demon Deacons picked up a win over the Cardinals to salvage something from the opening series in conference play.
Uniform of the Week: Florida Gulf Coast
Oh hell yes.
We all remember Florida Gulf Coast for being Dunk City, but it has added yet another gem to its resume with this uni. That's what a college baseball jersey is supposed to look like. Can't do it any better than that.