Georgia vs Ga Tech baseball – Behind a six-run outburst in the third inning that essentially put the game out of reach, the Bulldogs (22-20) handled in-state rival GT (27-14) by a 13-5 final score on Tuesday night at Foley Field, pummelling the Gnats.
The victory clinched the season series for Georgia against the 25th-ranked Yellow Jackets, the first year the Bulldogs have won the series in the Peach State’s premier rivalry since 2013. A total of eight Bulldogs recorded at least one RBI in the contest, and nine players scored at least one run for the home side.
The Bulldogs will look to finish the season sweep at Turner Field in Atlanta on May 17.
Georgia wasted no time offensively as Nick King and Skyler Weber started the game off with back-to-back singles. Two batters later, Daniel Nichols came through with a RBI single to right to give the home squad an early 1-0 edge.
The Bulldogs added on in the second, hanging two runs on the board as LJ Talley’s first career triple and a sacrifice fly from Nick King each went for RBI and a 3-0 lead.
Georgia then busted the game open in the third, tacking on six runs to claim a 9-0 lead through three innings. Five Bulldogs claimed RBI in the inning, with two via walk and one hit by pitch. King added his second sacrifice fly of the night to give himself multiple RBI, and Weber hit a RBI single to left to cap the offensive outburst.
Georgia Tech got on the board with a run in the fifth inning to trim Georgia’s lead to eight runs, and the Yellow Jackets added three more in the seventh to climb to within 9-4 as the game headed into the home stretch.
Mitchell Webb immediately got one run back, launching a solo home run, his third bomb of the season, to push Georgia’s lead to 10-4 in the bottom of the seventh.
Tech answered with a solo home run of its own in the eighth, but the Bulldogs responded with three runs of their own in the bottom of the eighth to put a bow on the win.
Dawg Tracks
– Daniel Nichols’ RBI single in the first inning gave him 15 career RBI against Georgia Tech.
– LJ Talley’s triple in the second was his first three-bagger of his career.
– Georgia’s offense has started to flashed explosiveness of late, hanging a six spot on Tech after scoring eight in an inning against South Carolina in the last weekend series at Foley Field.
– Nick King’s two-RBI game represented his third multi-RBI game of the season.
– Skyler Weber claimed his team-leading 16th multi-hit game of the season. It was his fifth three-hit game of the season.
– Mitchell Webb’s third homer of the season, a solo shot in the seventh, was Georgia’s 21st consecutive solo home run.
– Wrenn’s RBI triple in the 8th was his third triple of the season, seventh of his career.
– Eight of Georgia’s nine starters in the lineup recorded a hit, eight Georgia players recorded RBI and nine Bulldogs scored at least one run.
– Georgia’s 13 runs represented the first time the Bulldogs hit double digits against Georgia Tech without extra innings since winning 17-0 in 2013.
Stricklin Says
Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach Scott Stricklin
On another victory towards the NCAA Tournament…
“The message to our kids has been just play good baseball down the stretch and we’re going to be in the tournament…With the teams that we’re playing, with our schedule, with the teams ahead of us, we just need to play good solid baseball….that gives us some momentum going into Nashville.”
On telling team number of wins needed…
“I’ve always been very honest with my team. I just told them this is what we need to do. The other message that I told them was that we need to do this for our seniors…This is what we need to do and we all know that we’re capable of doing it. We all need to do our jobs, and we played a good baseball game tonight and we beat a good team which will help us in the postseason.”
On continuing momentum in the weekend…
“We’ve gotten good starts out of Robert Tyler, but you look at the last two weekends and we’ve played consecutive No. 2 teams in the country and we are 3-3. So we’ve had pretty good weekends these last two weekends against the teams that we have been playing, but we’re playing another top-10 team at Vanderbilt…This win is big for us and Robert has got to set the tone on Friday night.”
Players’ Perspective
So. OF Keegan McGovern
On the importance of the win…
“(Coach Stricklin) was telling us we need to win eight of our last 15 games and we’ll be in the NCAA (tournament). We’re just trying to not look ahead at that. We’re going to try every day to take it one game at a time. We can’t look at it as try to shoot for eight (wins) because you don’t want to come down to those last few games trying to scratch for that win. So we have to take it one game at a time.”
On the offense’s performance tonight…
“When you’re playing a team like them, it’s always huge for us to come out of the gates hot swinging the bats like we did. It was really fun.”
Mitchell Webb
On knocking off another ranked opponent…
“It feels good. We’re playing good right now. We just want to build momentum. Like you said eight (wins) was the goal, but we’re shooting for 10, 11, 12, so you just have to take it one game at a time and just build momentum towards the weekend.”
On his home run…
“It was a 2-0 fastball about belt-high and I just tried to put a good swing on it and it just happened to go that far.”
On Deck
Georgia travels to Nashville for a weekend series against the Vanderbilt Commodores and will next play at home on Friday, May 6 against Ole Miss.
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