Florida State coach Lonni Alameda earns 500th win

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Another milestone in an impressive coaching career happened on Wednesday night for Florida State head coach Lonni Alameda. No. 9 FSU (28-4) posted a 4-0 victory over Jacksonville (18-20), giving Alameda her 500th win in her coaching career.

Alameda is in her eighth season at FSU and holds a 343-124 mark as the leader of the Seminole softball program. She has been named the ACC Coach of the Year in each of the last three seasons – 2013, 2014 and 2015 – and has won three ACC championships. Alameda earned 157 wins at UNLV from 2004-08, guiding the Rebels to the NCAA Tournament in 2005 and earning Mountain West Conference and NFCA West Region Coach of the Year honors.

“The celebration of this is for the student-athletes,” said Alameda. “Over time and all the people you’ve been around, it’s pretty awesome to coach an amazing game. You try to create this culture, this family atmosphere and you can either talk about it or know it is a real feeling. It almost feels like Christmas morning hanging out with your family. It is awesome.”

Jessica Burroughs was dominant in the circle on Wednesday night for the Seminoles, retiring 15 of the first 16 batters she faced, allowing just a single up the middle by Heather Roberts in the fourth inning before being replaced by Meghan King for the start of the sixth inning.

After Jacksonville loaded the bases with no outs after a base hit, walk and a fielder’s choice, Burroughs re-entered the game and got the next three batters to pop out to end the threat.  

Burroughs tossed a perfect seventh to end the game and secure the victory, moving to 17-2 on the season. The redshirt junior faced just one over the minimum, giving up one hit in 7.0 innings of shutout softball with 10 strikeouts and zero walks.

“It was big for Jessica to get out there as she worked on some stuff yesterday and was able to implement it today,” added Alameda. “She looked really sharp. This time of year, sometimes you get excited about the conference games and the midweeks are hard to get up for. To get the W today was huge as we executed the gameplan.”

The Seminole offense was limited throughout the game by Jacksonville’s Victoria Brown as she kept the ball low in the zone and cause several players to groundout throughout the evening.

FSU finally broke into the scoring column in the third after Cali Harrod blooped a single behind the first baseman, followed by a hit-by-pitch to Morgan Klaevemann. Ellie Cooper drove a pitch into left center, easily scoring Harrod and Klaevemann to give the Noles a 2-0 lead.

The Seminoles added to the lead in the sixth, making it 4-0 on a two-RBI single by Jessica Warren. Alex Powers started the inning with a single and moved up to second on an illegal pitch and stole third to get into scoring position. A walk to Broderick and a stolen base by pinch-runner Victoria East put runners in scoring position for Warren, who knocked a single to right center.

The stolen base by East in the sixth inning was the sixth stolen base of the game for FSU, giving the Noles 76 stolen bases on the season. Klaevemann, East, Warren, Harrod, Powers and Korina Rosario each swiped a bag against the Dolphins as Florida State matched its season-high in stolen bases. The Noles also stole six bases at North Carolina on March 26.