Eagles open Lakeland portion of FCSAA Tournament against SCF

LAKELAND, Fla. (May 9, 2014) – Tallahassee Community College resumes postseason play at 4 p.m. Friday when it opens bracket play at the NJCAA Gulf District/FCSAA State Baseball Tournament against the State College of Florida Manatees.

All games will be streamed online by Panhandle Sports Broadcasting at www.PSBlive.com.

The newly-expanded ten-team, double-elimination event will take place at Joker Marchant Stadium, spring training home of the Detroit Tigers.

Tallahassee punched its ticket to Lakeland by defeating Seminole State College, 20-1, on April 28 in one of two FCSAA Wild Card games. Eastern Florida State College scored a 10-8 walk-off win over St. Petersburg the same day to join the Eagles as wild card entries to the bracket portion of the FCSAA Tournament.

This marks Tallahassee's first back-to-back berths in the FCSAA Tournament since 1999 and 2000.

Both Tallahassee (38-16) and State College of Florida (30-18) spent time ranked No. 1 in the FCSAA Baseball Coaches' Poll before first encountering then overcoming adversity during conference play.

The Eagles, who opened the season 28-5, found itself sitting at 6-11 in Panhandle Conference play and three games back of Northwest Florida State College with just three games to play. But Tallahassee, suddenly, got off the deck and won three in a row while Northwest Florida State dropped its final three games to give the Eagles the PC's wild card berth.

State College of Florida, meanwhile, bounced between second and fourth place in the Suncoast Conference standings before winning seven of its last ten to lock up a 19^th straight berth to the postseason.

Three of Tallahassee's five non-conference losses came to the Manatees, who swept a series at Eagle Field in mid-February. Two of the games went to extra innings and Friday's probable starter Reggie McClain shut out Tallahassee, 6-0, in the third.

While McClain is firmly entrenched as one of the top starting pitchers in the state, Tallahassee is expected to counter with freshman Logan Elliot, a converted relief pitcher. Elliot didn't make a start until facing Northwest Florida State on April 22 and proceeded to pitch a complete game and jump start the Eagles' late season push. Six days later, he got the win over Seminole State and ended up earning first-team All-Panhandle Conference honors.

Winning Friday's tourney opener could be key to both team's hopes of winning the event and claiming the accompanying berth to the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colo. With two additional teams in the field, four teams are faced with having to play an extra game in order to win its way through the tournament.

Eastern Florida State and Gulf Coast State College play immediately before Tallahassee and State College of Florida and features the other two members of the "unfortunate four."

The winner of Tallahassee-State College of Florida will advance to play Southern Conference Champion Miami Dade College at 1 p.m. Saturday. The loser will face elimination against the loser of Chipola College-College of Central Florida at 7 p.m. Saturday.