Canes baseball trending up as ACC tournament begins

It’s all smiles in Coral Gables right now, at least in Mark Light Stadium.

The Canes bounced back from a series-opening 5-3 loss to #18 Duke to take the last two games and secure another series win to close the regular season. The highlight of the weekend was on Friday evening. Trailing 8-3 to the Blue Devils in the 8th inning, Miami pushed across three runs after loading the bases, and in the 9th, they tied the game on a two-out, two-run bloop single by Renzo Gonzalez. After failing to score in the 10th with the bases loaded and no outs, Miami walked it off in the 11th on a 2-run home run by Carlos Perez. Miami won on Saturday 10-1 to clinch its sixth straight series win.

The Canes finished the regular season at 37-18 and 18-12 in the ACC, one game behind Virginia for the top record in the Coastal division. They finished with a sterling 28-5 mark at Mark Light Stadium. Miami currently holds a projection of 13 seed per D1 baseball and 12 seed from Baseball America. In other words, Miami is in an excellent spot to host a regional - absent maybe going 0 for 2 in Durham - and has a path to a national seed if they can claim the ACC tournament title.

Miami does have the benefit of being the top seed in their pool, which is a huge advantage. The Canes earned the #4 seed in the ACC Tournament, where they are in the same pool as Duke and NC State, who play Monday night. Should Miami defeat the winner of that game, they will advance to the next round as the highest seed of the group.

In any event, the season has turned around for the better, and Miami has as much momentum as anyone going into postseason play. Hopefully there will be more Mark Light magic in June.

Go Canes!