Lawrenceville – The No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs completed a series sweep of No. 17 Georgia Tech Sunday 9-3 at Coolray Field, marking the third sweep of the Yellow Jackets in the past four years.
Georgia (11-1), picked up its fourth straight win in front of a sellout crowd. Freshman pitcher Jonathan Cannon got his third win of the season after coming into relieve lefty C.J. Smith, who had six strikeouts on the day.
Georgia’s Tucker Bradley extended his streak of reaching base safely in all twelve games this season. Bradley also had his fifth three-hit game of the season. Center fielder Ben Anderson continued his hitting streak to seven games, and he has reached base successfully the last 11 games. Anderson was 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and two RBIs.
“We didn’t want to have them feel like they were any better than us or give them any hope, so we took it to them all three games,” Anderson said. “We showed them we’re the best team in the state.”
Georgia picked up right where they left off from Saturday’s 12-0 dominant performance by scoring three runs in the first inning. Those runs came from smart base running and three wild pitches by Georgia Tech’s starter, but the Yellow Jackets (7-4) came right in the second scoring one run off a double.
In the bottom of the third, Bradley reached first on a single, followed by a wild pitch and two sacrifice flies that scored him. That run extended Georgia’s lead to 4-1.
In the top of the fifth, Georgia Tech tallied two more runs before Cannon struck out the side. At that point, Georgia led 4-3.
“When it was 4-3, my defense did a heck of a job behind me,” Cannon said. “But after that, getting those runs like we did makes it so much easier on a pitcher.”
In the sixth, the Georgia bats woke up again. After two consecutive walks, Anderson doubled down the right-field line scoring both runners. Bradley then singled to left-center scoring Anderson.
Georgia then picked up another run after Anderson’s second single, scoring Chaney Rogers. In the eighth, Bradley scored on a Riley King sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 9-3.
That was all she wrote as the Yellow Jackets couldn’t respond in the ninth. Georgia has now swept Georgia Tech in 2017, 2018, and now in 2020 as they have won 10 out of the last 12 meetings.
Head coach Scott Stricklin was impressed.
“I thought (Saturday) was the best game (a 12-0 win) we’ve played all year long, and I thought today was the second,” Stricklin said. “Our guys really wanted to finish it off. Winning the series was a great feeling since they [Georgia Tech] won the series last year, so getting that back on our side to get the sweep today was big for us.”
The Bulldogs return to action on Tuesday, March 3rd for a matchup against Georgia Southern at Foley Field at 5 p.m. and on Wednesday, March 4 at SRP Park in N. Augusta, S.C. The series will conclude on March 11th.