Providence College Athletics
Providence College
Florida State
Providence Baseball Doesn't Die Quietly
6/21/1999 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 30, 1999
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The end inevitably came with hugs, tears and a long ovation.
The Providence baseball program played its last game Sunday at the NCAA Tallahassee regional, but not before the Friars put up one memorable last stand.
Trailing by six runs and facing extinction, the Friars fought back to reach the championship round by beating Jacksonville 9-8 in 10 innings.
Even though that earned the Friars only a few hours' reprieve - Florida State eliminated Providence 14-3 in a later game to win the regional - the extra-inning comeback will stand as their lasting memory.
"These guys have brought that kind of intensity to the ballpark every day," Providence coach Charlie Hickey said. "Even if we had lost, it would have been one to hang the hat on."
School officials decided last October to discontinue baseball.
The move came despite the baseball team earning two previous berths in the NCAA tournament and recording just one losing season this decade.
The team's response was to put together the most successful season in school history, winning 43 games in the regular season and four more to take the Big East tournament.
Providence came to Tallahassee as the No. 2 seed behind host Florida State, then lost to Jacksonville in the tournament opener. The Friars earned a rematch by beating The Citadel, but things looked bleak when they trailed 7-1 after 5 1/2 innings.
That's when the Friars really expressed how much they didn't want to stop playing baseball.
With their teammates passionately shouting encouragement from the top row of the dugout for the final five innings, the Friars poured their hearts into the performance.
They rallied to tie the game 7-7, fell behind when Jacksonville scored in the top of the ninth, then tied it again to send the game to extra innings. Finally in the 10th, Neal McCarthy hit a two-out solo homer to keep the Friars alive.
"It was a lot of fun," Hickey said. "I said coming into this tournament that we were going to be a tough team to beat. Those last three or four innings, we just kept coming and coming and coming."
It was the kind of game the Friars had made a habit of playing this spring, as if something very precious to them was being taken away.
"We just never gave up," third baseman Angelo Ciminiello said. "It's just the kind of team we are. We play every inning, every pitch. We're an emotional team and we just stuck together. Good things happen when you stay up."
The turning point actually came midway through the seventh inning, when the umpires tossed Providence backup catcher Jeremy Sweet and Jacksonville third baseman Kirk Asche for verbal abuse.
Sweet was yelling obscenities from the dugout and Asche responded from his third-base position. The incident only added fuel to the Friars' comeback.
"I could feel it," Hickey said. "We were just going to scrap and scrap and scrap. If the umpire had thrown out 24 of us, we would have continued to scrap out there."
However, the Friars didn't have enough left to challenge Florida State, a program that has reached the College World Series in five of the past seven years. The Seminoles broke a 2-2 tie with three runs in the third inning and gradually pulled away.
In the ninth inning, Florida State's fans gave Providence a long standing ovation. After the final out, the Friars hugged and shed tears in front of their dugout.
"You had to feel for them," FSU catcher Jeremiah Klosterman said. "Even when they trailed us by 10 runs, you could see them digging down deep and believing they could still win. You have to respect that. I just hope they reinstate their program again someday."
