With arguably the toughest part of the schedule still to go, Georgia entered this weekend’s series against Auburn hoping to pad its conference mark, which stood at .500 entering play on Thursday.
Unfortunately, the Bulldogs are once again south of the all-important mark, after the Bulldogs dropped Saturday’s contest, 9-7.
Georgia (27-16, 10-11) had won its previous three SEC series, before losing two of three to Auburn (19-21, 5-16).
“It hurts; it’s a gut punch,” head coach Scott Stricklin said. “But we didn’t swing it well enough, we didn’t pitch it well enough, and we didn’t make the plays we needed. We didn’t make any errors, but we didn’t make the ones we could have, and the game flipped.”
To the Bulldogs’ credit, Georgia—which trailed 7-0 heading to the bottom of the third—made it close.
Down by five in the ninth, the Bulldogs scored three times and had the tying runs on second and third before Garrett Blaylock struck out to end the game.
“You’re down five runs in the ninth and all of a sudden, you’ve got the tying run on second and the winning run at the plate, with a guy who can hit a home run at any time,” Stricklin said. “When it’s 9-4, you take that in a heartbeat. The problem is, we let it get 9-4, and the way we came out of the gate, you’re not going to win many games when you give somebody seven runs.”
Despite the loss, catcher Fernando Gonzalez is confident the team can bounce back, despite next weekend’s impending trip to No. 1 Arkansas
“I think we know how good we are,” said Gonzalez, who went 3-for-4 with an RBI. “We were in a good spot where even if we lost the series, that we were going to come back next weekend and do whatever it takes to win.”
The Bulldogs found themselves down 7-0 before scoring two in the bottom of the third. Georgia would ultimately close to within three in the sixth, before a two-run eighth pushed the margin to five.
Freshman Liam Sullivan at least gave his teammates a chance to attempt to rally.
After replacing Will Pearson in the third, the big left-hander responded by throwing four scoreless innings with five strikeouts, both career highs.
Auburn led 7-0 when Sullivan took over. By the time he left, the Bulldogs had managed to trim the margin to 7-4, when Jack Gowen took over to start the seventh.
“Liam gave us a chance to win. We were hoping for maybe two; he was so good for the third we put him out there for the fourth,” Stricklin said. “He gave us a chance to creep back in there and we did; then they scored the two in the eighth, and that made it a lot more difficult.”
Auburn opened quickly, scoring three runs off starter Luke Wagner (3-3), who started the game by throwing six straight balls.
Wagner just didn’t have it.
The freshman was chased in the second, which saw the Tigers tack on three more runs for a 6-0 lead before the Bulldogs even took their second turn at bat.
After Auburn added a seventh run in the third, Georgia would ultimately get on the board in the innings bottom half. An RBI double by Gonzalez, followed by an RBI single by Ben Anderson, accounted for the runs.
Josh McAllister, who played for the first time in four games since re-tweaking his hamstring, homered over the fence in left to make the score 7-4 in the fourth.
After Auburn pushed the lead to 9-4, the Bulldogs made a furious push in the bottom of the ninth.
Cole Tate and Corey Collins each had RBI singles in the inning for the Bulldogs, who cut the lead to 9-7. Tate scored on a wild pitch, with Collins and Connor Tate moving up to third and second, respectively.
However, that would be as close as it got, as Blaylock struck out, ending the game.
The Bulldogs return to action Friday, when Georgia travels to Arkansas.
