For the second Sunday in a row, the Georgia Bulldogs left Foley Field in celebratory fashion. Cole Tate hit a single right through the middle of the infield to score Ben Anderson giving the home team a 3-2 victory. The Bulldogs nearly blew a tremendous weekend of pitching but were able to rally and sweep their final non-conference series of the season.
Georgia did not bring the same firepower to Sunday’s game that it did in the previous two games. However, the Bulldogs were successful scoring by playing more situational baseball, rather than relying on home runs.
Jonathan Cannon got his second start of the season and pitched beautifully, despite being on a strict pitch count of 50-55 pitches. Cannon hit 95 miles per hour on his fastball and caught a couple of batters looking at his breaking balls for strike three. Cannon struck out four batters without administering a walk in four innings of work.
“On Tuesday, I did not think my fastball command was great,” said Cannon. “Today, it felt really good and I was able to throw what I wanted to. I think that’s gonna be a big building block for me moving forward is working off of my fastball and letting my off-speed come into it.”
Jaden Woods had been Georgia’s usual Sunday starter while Cannon was out with an injury. With Cannon back healthy, Woods relieved him in Sunday’s contest and pitched quite well for four innings. Stricklin left Woods on for the ninth, where he sputtered for the first time on the day. Woods walked a batter to start the ninth and was pulled after going down 3-1 in the count to the next batter. Woods’ day ended with him throwing four-plus innings with five strikeouts.
Liam Sullivan then came on and allowed the batter that had a 3-1 count to walk. Lipscomb then got one run on a sacrifice fly. With two outs and a runner on second, Malik Williams singled to tie the game. Both offenses went quiet again until the 12th inning. Tiger Borom hit a one-out triple for Lipscomb but was thrown out at the plate trying to steal home later in the inning. Ben Harris ended up as the winning pitcher for Georgia.
After Ben Anderson singled in the 12th inning, he stole second base. With two outs, the Bisons decided to intentionally walk Corey Collins, which is understandable given the fact that Collins homered on Friday and Saturday. However, that made them pitch to Connor Tate who was hitting .400 on the season heading into that at-bat. Tate lined a ball into centerfield and Anderson ended up scoring while standing up. Tate has a team-high .410 batting average.
“You just have confidence in yourself once you have already done it once, so it makes you not be very nervous,” said Tate on his approach at the plate.
Georgia’s pitchers only gave up nine hits total in the series, three on each day. The Bulldogs’ pitching staff threw 29 scoreless innings as well this weekend. They should be very confident heading into conference play next weekend. Not only are they pitching well, but the whole staff finally seems entirely healthy at the right time.
Georgia moves to 13-3 on the season and will travel to Greenville, South Carolina on Tuesday to face Wofford at 6 p.m. at Fluor Field. The Bulldogs will then return home next weekend to start conference play against Tennessee. Georgia has played well so far this season but will be tested at another level against SEC competition.