Tallahassee, Fla. – After spotting No. 10 Florida State a 7-1 lead through the first two innings Tuesday night, the Stetson Hatters rallied to bring the potential go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth inning before falling to the Seminoles 8-4 at Dick Howser Stadium.

The Hatters' comeback was thwarted by a familiar face as former Stetson hurler Tyler Warmoth came on to pitch in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and struck out Vance Vizcaino to end the comeback opportunity.

The loss for Stetson (17-19) was the Hatters' fifth straight, and sixth in seven games. Florida State, which came in having lost three of four, improved to 24-11. The teams will complete their two-game mid-week series on Wednesday afternoon with the first pitch slated for 4 p.m.

FSU jumped on Stetson freshman pitcher Joey Gonzalez (3-1) early, scoring five runs in the first inning and two more in the second. A trio of Hatters held the Seminoles to just one more run, on just three hits, the rest of the game.

The early FSU runs came thanks to seven hits, but the Seminoles also got help from the Hatters.

“We continue to make bad plays to cost ourselves runs,” Stetson coach Pete Dunn said. “In those first two innings we threw to the wrong base, allowing a runner to move up, we had an error that cost us two runs and we argued a call at second base with the ump and allowed another runner to score. That is just bad baseball.”

The big blows early for Florida State included a three-run home run for Cal Raleigh in the first inning and a two-run single by Jackson Lueck in the second. The only other run in the game for the Seminoles came on a solo home run off the top of the scoreboard by Dylan Busby off freshman Erik Wiebke.

The trio of Wiebke, Ben Onyshko and Walker Sheller allowed just one run on three hits over the last five innings with no walks and five strikeouts.

Offensively, the Hatters chipped away at the FSU lead all night. Kirk Sidwell singled and scored on a two-out single by Will Mackenzie in the second inning to get Stetson on the board. That was one of just two runs allowed by FSU starter Tyler Holton (1-2).

Stetson got its second run in the fifth when Cory Reid struck out, but reached on a wild passed ball. After stealing second, he came in to score on a two-out single by Austin Hale.

It was after Holton left the game that Stetson started to make some noise. Mackenzie led off the seventh with a double off Alec Byrd and scored on a Reid ground ball to third that was booted by FSU's John Sansone.

In the eighth, which has been Stetson's best inning all year, the Hatters plated a pair of runs thanks to a pair of hits and three walks. Kirk Sidwell drew a one out walk against Chase Haney to get things started. Kevin Fagan followed with a single and then Mike Spooner delivered a pinch-hit single to score a run.

After Mackenzie drew a walk to load the bases, Warmoth got the call to face his former team. He surrendered a run when one of his devastating sliders got away from catcher Bryan Bussey, allowing Fagan to score. After walking Reid to reload the bases, Warmoth struck out Vizcaino to end the inning.

In the ninth, after hitting Hale with a pitch, Warmoth struck out John Fussell and Jacob Koos, both looking, before getting Fagan to line out to end the game and earn his third save of the year.

“We scratched and clawed to get a chance after giving up all those runs early, but when we had a chance in the eighth and ninth we couldn't put the bat on the ball,” Dunn said. “We showed a lot in coming back, and very few teams would be able to come all the way back from that deficit against Florida State, but we couldn't get it done late when we had a chance.”

Sidwell and Mackenzie led the Hatters with two hits each. Busby had three hits to lead FSU while Sansone and Lueck had two each.