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DeLAND, Fla. – Standing on the precipice of its first ASUN Championship title in seven seasons, the FGCU baseball team (42-18) instead tumbled in the tournament championship game Sunday – falling 12-6 to top-seeded Lipscomb at Melching Field at Conrad Park.
"It just wasn't our day," said FGCU head baseball coach
Dave Tollett. "We played almost perfect all the way through to get to today, and we fought with everything we have.
"This is one of my best teams I have ever had here, with 42 wins. Maybe probably best offense in the country. These 10 guys will be missed. They brought so much to our program. Today is tough, but we have nothing to hang our heads about. We have nothing to hang our heads about – 42 wins is a sign not of a good ballclub, but a great one."
FGCU now awaits an uncertain NCAA Tournament fate, hoping to become an at-large participant when the 64-team bracket is announced at noon Monday on ESPN2. The ASUN regular season champs, Lipscomb (35-25) earned the automatic qualifier into the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Tournament begins Friday, June 2 at 16 on-campus regional sites.
"I think this team deserves an at-large berth," Tollett said. "I think 42 wins deserve an at-large berth, especially with one of the best offenses in the country. We will wait and see Monday, but this club deserves an at-large berth."
The second seed in DeLand, FGCU made a 3-0 run through pool play – including a 6-5 defeat of Lipscomb – and downed Jacksonville State 14-10 in Saturday's semifinals. But Sunday, the Bisons dramatically flipped what had been FGCU's script all season – bashing five home runs against the Eagles in the title game, with Alex Vergara hitting three by himself.
The Green & Blue got two homers from sophomore infielder
Edrick Felix (
Orlando, Fla./Victory Charter HS/College of Central Florida), setting the single-season FGCU record at 25. Graduate designated hitter
Joe Kinker (
North Port, Fla/Venice HS) added a two-run blast – giving him 61 in his storied career and FGCU a nation-best 142 homers this season.
Graduate infielder
Alejandro Figueredo (
Sucre, Venezuela/West Oaks HS/Seminole State), redshirt sophomore third baseman
Trevor Kole (
Parkland, Fla./Cardinal Gibbons HS), senior pitcher
LJ McDonough (
Blanchard, Okla./Blanchard HS/Wichita State) and graduate outfielder
Brian Ellis (
Oviedo, Fla./Hagerty HS) were named to the ASUN All-Tournament team.
Lipscomb leapt out to a 5-0 lead in the first two innings before FGCU could barely blink, as Mason Lundgrin launched a solo homer to center field in the first, Caleb Ketchup rocketed a two-run blast in the second and Vergara added a solo shot as part of a four-run second inning.
Felix, the ASUN Player of the Year, cut that deficit to 5-3 with a three-run blast in the third inning – his first of the week. But Lipscomb just kept trucking, scoring two runs in the bottom of the third to make it 7-3.
Vergara stuck again for the Bisons in the fourth with a solo shot to center, and uncorked a three-run shot on the exact same trajectory in the fifth as part of a four-run inning to make it 12-3.
FGCU tried to match the power surge swing for swing, as Felix led off the sixth with a solo shot to left and Kinker followed two batters later with a moonshot that cleared Alabama Avenue beyond the left-field wall.
The Eagles had their chances to draw closer, most notably in the eighth with the first two runners aboard with no outs – only to muster three infield fly balls that ended the threat.
FGCU has scored a school-record 578 runs this season – which leads the nation – and its .592 slugging percentage in 2023 is also the best in school history. The Eagles' 681 hits this season stand second in program history.
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COACH TOLLETT
FGCU coach
Dave Tollett currently owns a 713-426-3 overall record (.626) and a 248-140 (.639) record in the ASUN. He is the only head coach in the program's history and led the program to its first trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2017. He is a five-time ASUN Coach of the Year and has guided the Green and Blue to five ASUN Regular Season Championships and one ASUN Tournament Championship. His team has been ranked nationally on several occasions, including as high as No. 9 in the country in 2017, and has coached 63 all-conference selections, 33 draft picks, three current major leaguers, 13 current minor leaguers, four ASUN Pitchers of the Year, four All-Americans, three ASUN Players of the Year, two National Freshman All-Americans, one National Freshman Player of the Year, one National Player of the Year and one seven-time MLB All-Star.
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ABOUT FGCU
FGCU teams have combined to win an incredible 98 conference regular season and tournament titles in just 15-plus seasons at the Division I level. Additionally, in just 11-plus seasons of D-I postseason eligibility, the Eagles have had a combined 49 teams or individuals compete in NCAA championships. In 2022, the men's golf team became the first program to earn an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. Nine FGCU programs have earned a top-25 national ranking in their respective sport – including women's basketball (No. 20 in 2021-22 and No. 22 in 2022-23), baseball (No. 15 in 2023), beach volleyball (No. 20 in 2022), and both men's soccer (2018, 2019) and women's soccer (2018) as five of the most recent. In 2016-17, the Green & Blue posted a department-best sixth-place finish in the DI-AAA Learfield Directors' Cup and top-100 showing nationally, ahead of several Power-5 and FBS institutions. In 2018-19, the Eagles had an ASUN and state of Florida best seven teams earn the NCAA's Public Recognition Award for their Academic Progress Rate in their sport. FGCU also collectively earned a record 3.57 GPA in the classroom in the fall 2022 semester and has outperformed the general University undergraduate population for 27 consecutive semesters. The past seven semesters (Fall 2019-Fall 2022) saw another milestone reached as all 15 programs achieved a 3.0-or-higher cumulative team GPA. The Eagles also served an all-time high 7,200 volunteer hours in 2017 – being recognized as one of two runners-up for the inaugural NACDA Community Service Award presented by the Fiesta Bowl.
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