Florida State hosted one of the toughest regionals in the nation when they brought in a field that included the SEC’s Auburn, as well as conference champions Kennesaw State and Jacksonville State. The Seminoles met up with Auburn in the winner’s bracket game and the game was a pitcher’s duel, with each starting pitcher giving up one run in seven innings. With a tie ball game, extra innings were on tap, with both teams looking for a victory that would give them a much easier road to earning a Super regional berth.
Enter Carsyn Gordon.
The Seminoles’ junior first baseman served as protection for Jessie Warren throughout the season for Florida State, as they anchored the top spots in the batting order. To start that eighth inning against Auburn, it was Gordon that would lead off and serve as table-setter if her team was to rally. As it would turn out, Gordon provided all the rally that the Seminoles needed.
A long fly down the right field escaped the glove of the diving Auburn right fielder. Gordon hustled around the bases and made it all the way around with the game-winning, inside-the-park home run to give her team the walk-off victory.
““One swing. It has been a motto of ours for a while now; one swing can change a game,” said Florida State’s head coach Lonni Alameda after the game. “Yes, it’s a silly quote sometimes but it’s true if you can stay in it and live it and it was awesome for Carsyn to be able to do that for us.”
Gordon was not done with the game-winning swings, though. After her team took a loss in the first game of the Super regional against LSU, the second game of the series again brought about extra innings after a 5-5 tie remained after regulation. The teams battled back and forth before the 11th inning, when one swing from Gordon again proved the difference for her squad.
A solo home run off Carley Hoover put Gordon and the Noles in front by a score of 6-5, and that was a lead that they would not relinquish. A two-run home run provided some insurance and after shutting down the Tiger offense in the bottom of the inning, Gordon’s home run proved the difference and a winner-take-all game three was forced. The Noles would go on to win that game, with Gordon scoring the insurance run in an eventual 3-1 final score, and earn the right to go to Oklahoma City and the Women’s College World Series.
Florida State again found themselves with their backs against the wall in Oklahoma City. After losing their first game in the World Series, the Seminoles won three straight on Saturday and Sunday and forced another winner-take-all game in the World Series semifinals, where they battled #3 UCLA for the right to play for a national championship.
The game was a slugfest; Florida State scored four runs in the top of the second inning, and UCLA answered with a pair of scores in the bottom of the frame. Such was the way the game would go; the Seminoles had never lost the lead in the game, but the back-and-forth feel of the match kept the squad on their toes. Then the fifth inning rolled around.
An RBI double and a squeeze bunt got the scoring started in that fifth inning, but after an intentional walk to Warren in front of her to put two runners on base, Gordon stepped to the plate.
It was not an unfamiliar circumstance – on Thursday, against the same UCLA team, the Bruins elected to intentionally walk Warren and Gordon struck out to end a scoring threat. It was a happening that the Seminole junior was determined not to repeat.
“They had done that the other night, walked Jessie to get to me,” Gordon said on Sunday night. “So it really fired me up to not let that happen again. I just took a breath, settled down, took a breath, and looked for my pitch to hit.”
And hit it she did. A three-run home run from Gordon gave the Seminoles twelve runs on the night and really seemed to put the nail in the Bruin coffin. The Bruins would score twice more to take away the possibility of a run-rule, but Florida State came away victorious with a 12-6 win.
Gordon chuckled a bit when asked her secret to coming up with big hits under pressure and when her team needs the momentum. “I don’t try to hit it out; I just keep fighting in every pitch and every at-bat,” she said on Sunday.
The Seminole batting order is filled with hitters that can step up when their team needs them, but Gordon’s penchant for coming through in the clutch and in big moments when her team needs a hero could be something that the Noles rely on once again as they play for the national championship for the first time in program history.
Photo via FSU Softball/TwitterFl
