Georgia started Thursday night’s opener at Vanderbilt as good as it could have hoped after Slate Alford’s leadoff home run put the Bulldogs on the board.
Who knew that at the time, that would be the last run they would score?
But thanks to lefty JD Thompson, that was exactly what happened as the 19th-ranked Commodores came back with three late runs to edge the fifth-ranked Bulldogs, 3-1.
Georgia falls to 32-7, 10-6 in the SEC. The Commodores improve to 28-10, 9-8 in the SEC.
“I challenged our offense a little bit tonight after the game, because I guess, I don't know, they thought this guy (Thompson) and this team were going to roll over or something,” head coach Wes Johnson said on his postgame radio show. “But that sucker dug in and started competing. By the time it was time for us to turn on the switch, he'd already gotten ahead of us. In road games like this, you learn, you continue to learn. But we'll have a really good plan (for Friday) when we come out; we'll be ready to play.”
The lefty Thompson went a season-long eight innings for Vanderbilt, allowing just five hits with just one walk and 14 strikeouts among his 120 pitches. Sawyer Hawks set the Bulldogs down in order in the ninth, recording Vanderbilt’s 15th strikeout of the evening.
“We've got to have a better approach,” Johnson said. “One of the things we didn't do tonight ... we didn't chase. But we also swung and missed the balls in the strike zone. We’ve got to clean that up.
Georgia starter Brian Curley was tremendous.
The right-hander went 6-plus innings, allowing just two runs on three hits with one walk and eight strikeouts.
He was especially tough early on.
Curley struck out five batters over the first two innings and retired 10 straight until walking Metter native Ruston Rigdon to lead off the fifth.
Rigdon would make it to third, but Curley kept him right there, striking out Jacob Humphrey to end the inning.
The strikeout was the seventh of the game for Curley, who looked like he was about to get some insurance runs in the sixth after Alford and Kolby Branch led off with singles.
But Georgia would not score.
Trey King pinch-hit for Christian Adams and bunted into a 1-5 force out before Thompson struck out Ryland Zaborowski and Nolan McCarthy to end the inning.
Curley would make it through the sixth, but in the seventh started to run out of gas.
A home run by Vandy’s Brodie Johnston on the first pitch he saw in the seventh tied the game, followed by a single by Rigdon chased Curley from the game.
The Commodores would eventually take the lead later in the innings on an infield hit before adding an insurance run in the eighth to account for the final score.
“Their guy (Johnston) jumped (Curley) there in the seventh on the first pitch and hit it,” Johnson said. “I thought it was good that we ran through a lot of guys right there in the seventh to try to keep it two to one. We did, and then they hit a little infield chopper and a little kind of, I won't call it a freak play, but just kind of a weird play, and they were able to score right there to extend their lead and get one more run on us.”
Georgia and Vanderbilt continue their series Friday at 7 p.m.
NOTE: Zaborowski had to leave the team in eighth when he appeared to have a ball Vandy used to score its go-ahead run hit off his ankle. Ryan Black took over at first.
