DURHAM, N.C. -- In the grand scheme of things, the ACC Tournament doesn't mean much. There's pride on the line, and it's always nice to keep winning. But teams that make the ACC Tournament title game generally have bigger goals in mind, which is probably why, since 1993, eight of the 22 league champions ultimately didn't make it to Omaha (and plenty that didn't win the league did).
Florida State head coach Mike Martin is the longest-tenured coach in the ACC, and he's guided the Seminoles to off-the-charts success since he took over in 1980 -- all the success you can have without actually winning a national title.
Every year, Florida State's goal is to get to Omaha and win the whole thing. That hasn't changed this year, even as the Seminoles dispatched a pesky Wolfpack squad by a final of 6-2.
But it was clear in the fourth inning with Florida State in some trouble that Martin takes the ACC Championship very seriously.
The Wolfpack had the bases loaded with one out, and it was clear starter Bryant Holtmann was in some trouble. Florida State, ahead 3-0 at that point, was in some trouble. Rather than go to his bullpen, Martin decided instead to turn to starter Boomer Biegalski, who had pitched for the Seminoles back on Wednesday in a win against Clemson.
Going on just three days' rest, Biegalski got out of the inning allowing just two runs -- one of which came on a bizarre infield fly rule play that caused a lot of confusion -- on said infield fly and a wild pitch.
He finished the game with a line of 4.2 innings pitched, one hit allowed, one walk and five strikeouts, solving the riddle of the red-hot N.C. State offense that no other teams had really been able to solve.
After Florida State responded to N.C. State cutting it to 4-2 with two more runs in the bottom of the fourth to make it 5-2, it still felt like the Wolfpack might claw back if FSU left the door open. Three runs is hardly insurmountable. But in the bottom of the seventh, a Quincy Nieporte double plated one more run to make it 6-2, and Biegalski put the next three N.C. State batters down in order.
When Martin went to take him out, the sophomore pitcher motioned to him as if to say he had one more inning left in him. But Martin had only planned on letting him get to 50 pitches; he was at 65 and FSU closer Billy Strode was ready for the ninth. So Strode came in to close it out successfully.
Biegalski went to 7-4 on the season with the two wins in Durham, and he didn't allow an earned run in 11 innings of work, striking out 12 and allowing just five hits. That was in stark contrast to his conference stats -- he went 3-3 in 10 starts and had a 3.36 ERA, allowing 23 earned runs in 10 games.
"(Biegalski) wanted to finish. I mean he gave me one of these -- 'I've got one more; I've got one more (inning)'," Martin said. "Well, he probably did, but we'd already gone 15 over what we wanted to do. It was time to give it to Billy, anyway.
"When he came to us his fastball was not what he wanted or we wanted. He's locating that fastball better. His slider is beginning to improve, which gives him a huge advantage. ... So it's really encouraging to see him develop the other two pitches to go along with his change up. I think that's the big key for him."
It was a remarkable transformation for his club, going from getting swept by Clemson and losing the final two games of the Louisville series to end the regular season to going 4-0 in the ACC Tournament.
But that's why Martin is one of the game's best.
"I've had the pleasure of coaching young men for a long time. Sometimes you see guys on the bench that act like they're really in it and then something happens, we get behind and they drop their head and they start thinking they're beat," Martin said. "Not one single Florida State baseball player ever pointed fingers, ever backstabbed, ever complained.
"And by the way, I didn't feel this way a week ago."
The win got the Seminoles their sixth ACC title and got them to 41-19 on the season, up to ninth in the latest Warren Nolan RPI. Will it be enough to be one of the eight national seeds?
Martin doesn't know, but he knows his team -- which went into the ACC Tournament as the No. 4 seed -- has done all it can. And for a coach who's tried for decades to win his first national title, coming achingly close far too many times, he knows that the game of baseball is often unforgiving and random.
"It's the craziest game in the world. When you've got any idea of what baseball is all about, please let me know, because I've been trying for so long to figure this out," Martin said, "and it is a game that will drive you crazy if you let it."
N.C. State, meanwhile, will wait to hear if it has done enough in the final weeks of the season and the postseason to host a regional next weekend.
Elliott Avent's team was gritty and resilient in the latter portion of the season, winning some of the close ones that they'd come out on the wrong side of prior to that.
The Wolfpack improved its RPI to 26 and its record to 34-21 overall. The hot streak to end the season -- winning 13 of the last 16 games played -- certainly won't hurt, but it's far from a guarantee. More likely than not, N.C. State winds up as a No. 2 seed in a nearby region or shipped off as a No. 2 in a weaker one.
His team was not going to hang their heads, even though it's now been 23 years and counting since they won an ACC baseball championship. Avent said he didn't mention it to his players before the game, because he didn't feel like he needed to. His team has been as dialed in and focused as it had been at any point all year.
"We've never really played bad all year, it just seems like we're playing a lot better," Avent said. "We got tougher, a little hungrier, a little smarter as the season wore on, which is what you're supposed to do. Want to congratulate our team. They played well from start to finish. And very proud of our guys, just very disappointed that we're going home without the championship."
The game of baseball is all about getting hot at the right time. Even though Louisville halted N.C. State's winning streak entering the ACC Tournament last week, the Wolfpack was clearly still a very hot team.
They hope that the lessons they've learned and the momentum they've gained will carry over into next week, wherever they are.
"I think this weekend it kind of showed everybody on the team that we can win the tight games," N.C. State's Andrew Knizner said. "When we play with confidence, we can compete with anybody in the country, beating Miami, the top 5 or whatever they are. It gives us confidence going into a regional that we can play with the best teams in the country."
