Off to Biloxi.
After Saturday afternoon’s 3-0 win over Old Dominion, Florida Atlantic’s baseball team will next travel to the Conference USA tournament next week in Mississippi. The Owls, slated as the No. 3 seed, will likely need to win the tournament title in order to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
FAU will open against No. 6-seed Rice on Wednesday at 10 a.m. FAU went 2-1 against Rice this season.
With Saturday’s win, FAU (33-19-1, 18-12) took the series from the Monarchs (36-19, 19-11), giving it a marquee series win in the regular-season finale. The win also snapped a season-ending slump for the Owls that included a sweep by Southern Miss and dropping two of three at last-place Western Kentucky.
Owls left-hander Jake Miednik delivered eight shutout innings for FAU to earn his team-leading sixth win of the season. He scattered six hits while striking out five and walking zero Monarchs, just days after his grandfather died.
“He was awesome,” FAU coach John McCormack said. “He was really good and I’m proud of him. That stuff’s never easy. Sometimes, your emotions take over and you want to be so good and you can’t. He was able to keep himself in check and he did a really nice job.”
Miednik has had an up-and-down season for the Owls (he entered Saturday with a 5.68 ERA), but will help decide FAU’s fate in Biloxi. Along with right-hander Alex House, Miednik is one of two Owls pitchers with at least 10 starts. McCormack said either House or right-hander Kyle Marman would start the tournament opener.
Saturday marked the second time in Miednik’s past four starts he pitched into the eighth inning.
“It’s big,” Miednik said. “I haven’t had the most consistent year, but right now, I feel pretty good going into the conference tournament.”
FAU scored single runs in the first, fourth and seventh innings. In the first, center fielder Jared Shouppe led off with a single and stole second base. Second baseman Stephen Kerr followed by dumping a run-scoring double down the right-field line.
First baseman Esteban Puerta singled home David Miranda in the fourth inning to give the Owls a two-run lead. The Owls tacked on an insurance run in the seventh inning on Kerr’s RBI single.
In his final home game at FAU, Kerr went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI. He was also hit by a pitch. Shouppe tallied two hits, two stolen bases and two runs scored.
In their half of the double-elimination tournament, the Owls will also be joined by No. 2 Old Dominion and No. 7 FIU.
Saturday’s result kept FAU out of Southern Miss’ side of the bracket. The Eagles are arguably the sport’s hottest team and carry a 14-game winning streak into next week’s tournament. The streak is the longest active one in the country, and includes a sweep of the Owls.
Since joining Conference USA in 2014, the Owls have not won a conference tournament, though they did claim the regular-season championship last season. In 2013, FAU won the Sun Belt tournament to earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
“We finished third in a good league, you got a shot,” McCormack said. “But we’re going there with the mindset of we got to win it to get in [to the NCAA tournament].”
mdefranks@sun-sentinel.com; On Twitter @MDeFranks.
