Mercer Baseball (19-16) toppled #8 Florida State University (30-6) on Tuesday, winning in Tallahassee, 13-6.
The Bears' victory is FSU’s first loss outside of the Atlantic Coastal Conference, and it is Mercer’s first win against a top-ten ranked team since 2018. Head Coach Craig Gibson is now 12-4 against top-ten opponents in his tenure at Mercer.
The Bears scored first in the second inning with a homer by Parker Lester ‘25, but the Seminoles took the lead in the bottom of the third with a pair of runs.
In the top of the fourth inning, Jackson Cherry ‘25 registered his only hit of the game when he drove Bradley Frye ‘25 and Carter Sanford ‘24 home. After a pitching change, Brandon Prince ‘24 earned his 25th RBI of the season after Antonio Brown ‘24 scored off of his double to left field. To cap off the seven-run fourth inning, Noah Best ‘24 hit a grand slam to bring the Bears’ lead to 8-2. It was the shortstop’s fourth home run of the season.
While Mercer gave up a deep ball to FSU in the bottom of the fifth, the Bears’ defense finished the inning after two strikeouts and a ground-out that stranded two Seminole base runners. Over nine innings, Mercer left eight FSU players on base, though Mercer had two errors in the game.
After the Bears scored two runs in the top of the sixth, both teams’ bats cooled off for two frames. In the bottom of the seventh, FSU cut Mercer’s lead to four, but their offense was stifled after that.
A double from Ty Dalley ‘26 in the top of the eighth added three runs to the board for the Bears, putting the game out of reach of the Seminoles.
Mercer will return to Macon on Friday to face off against Wofford University. The Terriers are 25-10 this season, and 6-3 in the Southern Conference. In SoCon play, the Bears are 3-6, and have not won a series since sweeping Siena College in mid-March.
Gabriel Kopp '26 is majoring in Journalism and Law and Public Policy at Mercer University. He has written for The Cluster since he started at Mercer, and currently works as the Sports Editor. When he isn't studying, he enjoys going for runs and reading the New York Times.
