Isaacs, Heddinger Shine in Win over FSU

It was a hell of an evening and a hell of game.  The big bad wolves were in town, the visitor's side was packed to the brim, and the biggest star in college athletics, Jameis Winston, was hounded for autographs for the entire evening.  JohnHeisman and I were with a FSU fan that squealed like a little girl when he even got close to Winston.  Needless to say, the pressure was on for the Jackets.

Like a good release valve in a steam Carnot engine (engineering!  Sorry, GT_Jason), the Jackets blew off some of that pressure early.  Tech booted in five runs in the first inning thanks in large part to a FSU fielding miscue and some excellent batting.  FSU pitcher Luke Weaver, who has walked just 14 men all year, walked in a run and hit Thomas Smith to give the Jackets some extra baserunners to work with.  Tech didn't really need it though, as got five runs on three hits by all the usual suspects.  Mott Hyde in particular reached on a pretty nifty error by FSU, as Luke Weaver flubbed the throw to FSU 1B John Nogowski which Hyde almost beat to the bag anyways.  There was also one instance where FSU could have turned a double play if they had tried, but the 2B John Sansone didn't make the throw.  Tech did a really good job of taking care of all these FSU mistakes with some heads up baserunning and some solid contact.

It turns out they would need all the runs they got.  FSU broke up Josh Heddinger's no-no in the top of the sixth with two hits and a run, at which point Danny Hall took him out of the game.  Give Hall credit for knowing when to pull his guy, a lesser manager might have left him in and then the game could've spiraled out of control.  Sam Clay then came in and closed out the inning after giving up one more unearned run.  Clay stayed in through the next inning and walked in one more run to post his only ER of the night.

It was then time for Dusty Isaacs to take the reigns in the eighth.  The struck out the side expediently, including getting Jameis Winston to fly out to shallow center-left.  There was a big uproar the pitch before that when Jameis took a BIG cut at expert curve right down the middle; Isaacs himself even looked pretty excited after that one.  After that, Dusty allowed three baserunners and that was the ball game.  He shut FSU down and in expert fashion.

Today's game airs at 2 PM on Fox Sports South in Atlanta, on other Regional Sport Networks around the southeast (list here) and on ESPN3.  As always, you can listen on the radio at 91.1 FM in Atlanta or at wrek.org/listen.  Let's get 'em again, boys!