Georgia coach Wes Johnson will never be happy with a loss. He’ll never be that way.
So, even though his Bulldogs fought to their final at-bat before falling Thursday night to No. 14 Oklahoma, 8-6, after trailing by seven, he wasn’t taking any positives from his team’s defeat.
“There’s no moral victories,” Johnson said. “It (baseball) shows a wins column and it shows a loss column; it shows standings. We (the team) talked about the eighth and the ninth, but you’ve got to do that in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. We just have to do it.”
The loss drops Georgia to 33-11, 10-9 in the SEC. Oklahoma improves to 29-11, 11-8 in SEC play.
For the first seven innings, it was more of the same for a Georgia offense that failed to score more than two runs in three of their previous four games.
The Bulldogs managed just five hits over the first seven innings against Sooner ace Kyson Witherspoon (8-2) before finally stringing some hits together in the eighth, scoring four times.
Ryland Zaborowski – who had been in a 2-for-18 slump – cleared the bases with a double, before Nolan McCarthy singled in the first baseman to make the score 8-5.
The Bulldogs would add another run in the ninth off closer Dylan Crooks on an RBI single by Kolby Branch, bringing Slate Alford to the plate.
Alford gave the Bulldogs a great at-bat, working the count to 3-2 and fouling off several pitches, before striking out, ending the game.
“I mean, that's kind of just, that's who we are,” said Tre Phelps, who broke out of a 2-for-23 slump with two hits, including his sixth home run. “But we’ve got to be able to show that from pitch one, as in just being locked in and focusing in through nine, no matter who it is at the plate.”
Brian Curley pitched well enough to win.
After giving up the homer to Dayton Tockey, Curley set the Sooners down in each of the next three innings.
The biggest was the fifth, when he struck out Jaxon Willits looking with two out and the bases loaded to keep the score 2-1.
Witherspoon returned the favor in the inning’s bottom half, getting Devin Obee looking with runners at second and third.
The Bulldogs would rue the missed opportunity.
After lifting Curley in favor of JT Quinn, the Sooners struck for three runs, two coming on Tockey’s second home run for a 5-1 lead.
Tockey would drive in another run in the eighth, before an injury knocked him from the game.
After singling in Oklahoma’s sixth run, Tockey hit the bag at second awkwardly, fell to the ground, holding his left knee in obvious pain. He had to be helped from the field.
The Sooners tacked on three more runs in the eighth to make the score 8-1 before the Bulldogs mounted their comeback, only to fall two runs short.
“I want to say it was after a loss in the (NBA) playoffs, and I kind of live my life like this. Michael Jordan was playing the Cavaliers in a playoff game. I can't remember how many he had, 46, 40-something, he got beat,” Johnson said. “They looked at Jordan after the game, they said, 'Man, that was a great game. He goes, you know what, if it was great, we wouldn't have lost.'"
Oklahoma and Georgia resume their series Friday at 1. The game was originally set for 6 p.m., but moved up due to predicted bad weather approaching the Athens area.
