Baseball Sweeps Nova Southeastern in Regular Season Finale

Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Florida Southern baseball team finished its regular season on a high note, sweeping a double header at Nova Southeastern University. The Mocs improved to 15-11 overall and 14-10 in Sunshine State Conference play.
 
Seniors Vaun Brown (28) and Jacob Teter (33) both continued to climb the program home run leaderboard, as the pair of Mocs now have 61 combined total career home runs in a Southern uniform.

HOW IT HAPPENED
 
Game One (F/10)
Florida Southern 5, Nova Southeastern 4

• The Sharks struck first, scoring one run in the bottom of the first off the Mocs starter, Jarrod Cande.
• Southern answered back the following inning, as catcher Santino Miozzi drove in third baseman Conner Berry to tie the game at 1-1.
• FSC would take their first lead of the double header later in the inning as centerfielder Vaun Brown drove in left fielder Nick Wells on a base hit through the right side of the infield.
• Teter blasted his 33^rd career home run in the fifth, giving the Mocs a 3-1 lead.
• NSU would tack on another run off of Cande in the sixth, as Adan Fernandez hit his second home run off the Mocs righty.
• FSC answered back with a run in the seventh as second baseman Dylan Costa came around to score on a wild pitch. Costa led the inning off with a triple to right-center.
• NSU scored two more runs off of Cande in the seventh, tying the game at 4-4.
• As neither team could regain the lead, this was the first extra inning game of the season for both programs.
• Scott reached to lead off the tenth on a dropped third strike, advancing to second on a throwing error by the Sharks catcher. Wells would drive in Scott on a double down the left field line to give the Mocs a 5-4 lead.
• J.J. Niekro came in out of the bullpen for the Mocs, striking out four over his 2.1 innings of work.
• Thomas Spinelli came in to earn his 5^th save of the season, retiring all three batters he faced.

 
Game Two (F/7)
Florida Southern 12, Nova Southeastern 3
 

• Spinelli would start game two for the Mocs after throwing just six pitches in game one to record the save. He would throw 3.2 innings in game two, striking out three Sharks while allowing just one run to score.
• FSC struck first as Berry drove in Scott in the top of the second inning.
• Berry would drive in another two runs in the fourth, as he a laced an RBI single to right, plating Scott and Tilden Agee.
• Logan Verrino would take over for Spinelli with two outs in the fourth and would allow one inherited runner to score.
• FSC would answer back in the fifth, as Brown blasted his conference leading 13^th homer of the season to dead center field, giving the Mocs a 5-1 lead.
• The Sharks would add two more runs in the bottom of the fifth off of Verrino, cutting the Mocs lead back to two.
• Southern would blow the game open in the seventh, scoring seven runs while sending 13 men to the plate.
• Dawnson Lane pitched the final three innings for the Mocs, allowing no runs while striking out three Sharks.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

• With the wins, FSC improved to 46-33 all time against NSU.
• Spinelli earned the save in game one (5) and then earned his first win of the season in game two as he started the second game of the doubleheader.
• As a team, FSC wraps up the regular season leading the SSC in batting average, home runs, hits, runs per game, slugging percentage, and total bases.
• Center fielder Vaun Brown ranks among the SSC leaders in average, slugging percentage, hits, runs scored, RBI, home runs, and at bats.
• First baseman Jacob Teter also finished the regular season near the top of the conference leaderboards in average, slugging percentage, and OBP.
• Conner Berry, Zach Scott, Tor Sehnert, Thomas Spinelli, Jarrod Cande, and Nathan Madej are all on the conference leaderboard in at least one statistic.
• Final SSC regular season statistics and leaderboards can be found on the Sunshine State Conference website. Conference play wraps up on May 8 and all regular season stats are expected to be finalized by the end of the day.
• Teter ranks 5^th all-time in program history with 33 career home runs.
• Brown finishes his regular season in a five-way tie for 7^th all-time in home runs, with 28. He is also third all-time in HBP with 38. This season he is in the top five in all of Division II baseball in home runs per game at 0.52.
• Scott and Brown were the only two Mocs to start in all 26 of the team's regular season games. Scott has started all 98 team games since coming to FSC in 2019. Brown has made 168 starts in his five years at FSC.
• Head Coach Lance Niekro managed his 400^th and 401^st games today. He has a record of 239-161-1 in his nine seasons at the helm for the Mocs.

 
UP NEXT
With the regular season concluded, the Mocs will wait until the NCAA Regional Selection Show on May 23. The show will be live streamed on NCAA.com at 10 p.m. EST as the Mocs will wait and see if they earned one of the four at-large bids to this year's regional. FSC last competed in a South Regional in 2018, when the Mocs hosted and won the tournament, ultimately finishing third in the nation.