Irish Embark On Postseason Play

May 23, 2017

By Michael Scholl

Five Things To Know

• The Notre Dame baseball team will play in its second ACC Baseball Championship this week at Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, Kentucky. The Irish are in Pool A, along with top-seeded Louisville and eight-seed Florida State. The Irish and Seminoles will meet on Wednesday, May 24, at 11 a.m., before a contest with the Cardinals on Thursday, May 25, at 7 p.m.
• Notre Dame is making just its second appearance in the ACC tournament after four years in the league. The 2015 club qualified and went 1-2 in Durham, North Carolina, with a win over Virginia between losses to NC State and Miami, before advancing to the 2015 NCAA Championship. All-time, Notre Dame has won nine conference tournament titles (four Midwest Collegiate Conference, five BIG EAST) since abandoning independent status for the 1983 season.
• Matt Vierling has avoided a sophomore slump and the Atlantic Coast Conference has taken notice, with the Irish centerfielder earning third team All-ACC accolades on Monday. The Saint Louis, Missouri, native hit. 329 during the regular season with seven homers and 40 RBI, leading his club in all three categories. In addition, his 19 doubles and four triples both rank among the top-five in the conference. Vierling has been just as good in ACC play, hitting .322 in conference games, ranking 19th. His 14 doubles in league games rank second. The sophomore has also pitched for the Irish this season, making nine appearances on the mound with seven strikeouts in 11 innings of work and a pair of saves.
• The Irish played host to then-No. 13 Florida State March 24-25, with the Seminoles sweeping the series to cut Notre Dame’s all-time lead in the series to 11-10. Mike Martin’s squad has now won six-straight in the series. The series opened with FSU winning 8-2 and 8-3 (13 innings) in a doubleheader before the Seminoles took game three, 5-1. The teams have never met in the ACC tournament, but have played twice in the NCAA tournament. In 1993, the teams split a pair of games at the East Regional in Tallahassee. In 2002, Notre Dame took on the nation’s top seed in the Tallahassee Super Regional and won two-of-three to advance to the College World Series. Wednesday will be just the second meeting between the two clubs on a neutral site, with Notre Dame having won a 10-1 contest in Orlando, Florida, in 1998.
• Like Florida State, Louisville also swept a three-game series from the Irish at Frank Eck Stadium this season. The then-No. 2 Cardinals won by scores of 2-0, 5-1 and 9-4 to run their edge in the all-time series to 25-8. The Irish and Cardinals have never met at the ACC Championship, but did split four meetings at the league tournament during their BIG EAST Conference days. Notre Dame won its 2006 BIG EAST title with a 7-0 win over Louisville in the final. The teams met three times in the 2009 BIG EAST Championship, with Louisville winning a semifinal before Notre Dame roared back, defeating the Cards to force a winner-take-all final, won by UofL, 7-6.

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Michael Scholl joined Fighting Irish Media in August 2016, coordinating communications for the baseball program and assisting with the football team at his alma mater. The South Bend native earned a degree in political science from the College of Arts & Letters in 2009 before going on to work in athletics communications at Providence College, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati.