TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – They have been there 20 times before. Will Florida State make number 21 their first ever baseball national championship?
Head coach Mike Martin has over 1,400 career wins at Florida State. That is good for 3rd among active coaches, but Martin has yet to turn any of the Seminoles 35 postseason appearances into a national championship.
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Martin will turn to lefty Brandon Leibrandt (8-2) on Friday against Arizona, who will start Mike Heyer who is 12-2 on the year.
Florida State and Arizona are no strangers when it comes to playing in Omaha as the two teams will square-off for the sixth time in the history of the series. It also marks the second time the two schools will meet in an opening game of the CWS as FSU defeated Arizona 4-0 in 1970.
Arizona leads the all-time series at 6-5, but has held the upper hand in Omaha winning four of the five previous meetings including three straight. The last time these two schools met in Omaha was in the 1986 championship game as the Wildcats came away with a 10-2 victory to claim their third national title.
FSU and Arizona let met in 1991 for a three-game series in Tucson. The Seminoles won game one (15-8) before the Wildcats captured the series with wins in games two (7-3) and three (3-2).