Georgia’s bats have shown how potent the Bulldogs’ lineup can be when everyone is clicking.
Friday’s opener against Binghamton in the opening game of the Athens Regional was a perfect example.
Thanks to a pair of two home runs each from Daniel Jackson and Tre Phelps, Georgia (42-15) rolled to a 20-4 win, setting up a winner’s bracket game at 6 on Saturday against Duke, which rolled past Oklahoma State 12-5 in Saturday night’s late game.
Binghamton (29-25) will play the Cowboys in a loser’s bracket game at noon.
“I think it's just getting back to slowing down the game a little bit, to use that term that we use a lot, obviously,” head coach Wes Johnson said of his team’s offensive outbursts. “At the end of the day, the majority of homers are going to come because you're working in the middle of the field, and you react to the pitch. We've worked a lot on that this week, which was, as I've told people before, this week was good for us. We needed to reset from an offensive standpoint.”
Jackson and Phelps accounted for much of the damage all by themselves.
The transfer from Wofford blasted a pair of three-run homers, going 2 for 3 with six RBI, while Phelps went 4-for-5 with two home runs and five RBI. He also scored four runs. Kolby Branch also had four hits.
Nolan McCarthy gave Georgia its fifth home run of the game with a solo shot in the eighth. The Bulldogs lead the nation with 138 homers.
“When it's going good for me, I'm trusting myself and not trying to pull the ball,” said Jackson, who now has 14 home runs. “When I'm trying to pull a fastball, I feel like I can't really react to offs very well. So, I'm trying to back the fastball up and head the other way, which I'm comfortable with.”
Starting pitcher Leighton Finley was appreciative of the support, even though he didn’t need it.
The junior from Richmond Hill went 6.2 innings, allowed just four hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.
He threw 114 pitches and received a standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 3,633 after he was taken out with two out in the seventh.
Zach Brown closed out the game, allowing two runs in the final 2.1 innings, both coming in the ninth.
“I thought Leighton came out today and really set the tone in the first. He's attacking the strike zone, I think that when guys can set the tone like that, it just kind of gives everybody in the dugout,” Johnson said. “I guess it calms everybody down is the way I would put it. But it never hurts to put up five in the first.”
Friday’s outing marked Finley’s second opening start in the Athens Regional. He also started last year’s contest against Army, but it did not go so well as he allowed four runs in 3.2 innings.
“For me, it was just going up there and having fun, not trying to do too much,” Finley said. “Obviously, with the rain delay, I feel like that played a little part in slowing it down. I was able to just hang out and get with the team and slow the game down. But definitely after last year, I know I wanted a better start coming off of last year, so I was happy with it.”
After a weather delay that pushed the scheduled noon start to 3:36, it didn’t take the Bulldogs long to get going.
Home runs by Phelps and Jackson put the Bulldogs up 5-0 in the first inning. Georgia was just getting started.
The Bulldogs wrapped it up with three runs in the third and four in both the fourth and fifth to punctuate the rout.
