The College of Central Florida Patriots (50-6) are one win away from a return trip to the NJCAA JUCO World Series after shutting out the Miami Dade Sharks 6-0 on Saturday night in the FCSAA State Championship Final Four tournament at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland.

 

Brian Holiday (9-0) dominated on the mound for the Patriots as he struck out 12 Shark batters over 7 shutout innings while allowing only three hits. Holiday would give way to closer Cam Schuelke in the 8th inning and Schuelke secured the win by throwing two innings allowing only one hit, no runs, and striking out one batter. The win was a milestone win for the Patriots as they have won 50 games in a season for the first time in school history.

 

The game was halted in the bottom of the first inning when mother nature decided to make the teams endure a 2 1/2 hour rain delay. Once the game was restarted, it was scoreless until the bottom of the sixth inning. That's when the Patriots would get to Miami-Dade starting pitcher, Kader Rabagh. John Marant walked to lead off the inning followed by a Carson Bayne single. This chased Rabagh out of the game and Juan Correa greeted relief pitcher Miguel Gonzalez with a single to reload the bases. Kareh Valentin would then hit a two-strike single to left field to plate the first two runs of the game. CF would reload the bases once again on a Kainen Jorge single and would score their third run on a bases loaded walk to Thad Ector. A Mike Guilliams hard hit ground ball was booted by the Miami-Dade shortstop to push the lead to 5-0 and the second error of the inning by the Sharks infield would score another to make it 6-0 Patriots. That's all the runs the Patriots would need as the pitching and defense was too much for Miami-Dade (34-15-1) to handle.

 

The win makes the Patriots 2-0 in the tournament, and they will await the winner of a loser bracket game between Northwest Florida State College and Miami-Dade College. The game is schedule for 5:00 PM at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland.