To understand the heartbreak that occurred Sunday afternoon for Georgia in the ninth inning against Oklahoma State, all you had to do was look in Slate Alford’s eyes.
This one hurt.
Up by two in the bottom of the ninth, the Bulldogs’ hopes of advancing to the finals of the Athens Regional were crushed after the Cowboys walked off Georgia with an 11-9 win.
“I'm heartbroken. None of us saw this coming,” Alford said. “We planned on playing for a long time. It didn't happen.”
It was a brutal end to a season that started with the team’s goal of making its first trip to Omaha since 2008.
In the top of the ninth and up by two, Georgia had a chance for more with runners at second and third with nobody out. But nobody scored, after OSU’s Matthew Brown struck out Kolby Branch, Daniel Jackson, and Nolan McCarthy to end the inning.
In the bottom of the ninth, Tyler McLoughlin – who hasn’t pitched since May 9 – received the call and promptly walked Nolan Schubart on four straight. That brought up Kolin Ritchie, who launched a homer to right, tying the game.
Enter closer Zach Harris, who retired a pair of batters after a single, only to have Brock Thompson end the game with a two-run homer, bringing the Oklahoma State pouring onto the field.
Head coach Wes Johnson was asked why he did not elect to start Harris in the ninth.
“Yeah, I mean, Zach was a tick sore today. If you're going to have a chance to play the second game, you're going to have to use different pitchers,” Johnson said. “We had Jordan Stevens ready to go, but we kind of held him back in case we're gonna start him. Tyler's closed out a game, he closed one out against Oklahoma here. We liked the matchup on paper, and we just didn't throw strikes.”
Harris wasn’t the only pitching decision Johnson was quizzed about during his postgame press conference.
Starter JT Quinn was pulled after four innings with Georgia up 7-3 in favor of Matthew Hoskins, who did not retire a batter as all four hitters he faced eventually reached base to enable OSU to tie the game in the fifth.
According to Johnson, Quinn’s pitch count of 78 was the reason.
“I told him after the third, his pitch count was getting high. I brought him over and said, ‘You're going to have to empty the tank right here,” Johnson said. “At that point, you're looking at the game, and it's five to three, and they had some guys coming up that we didn’t necessarily like the matchup with him. So, he emptied the tank and did his job, and got back in and put a zero up. When he did that, we knew he was done.”
Offensively, Georgia had one of its better games in weeks, touching up Cowboy ace Harrison Bodendorf for a season-high seven runs in five innings.
Of those runs, four came courtesy of a pair of home runs each by Alford and Christian Adams, who went 4-for-5 with four RBI.
But Georgia’s pitchers couldn’t keep Oklahoma State in the yard. The Cowboys added four more home runs, giving them a three-game total of 15 for the regionals.
“We like our model, but obviously, it's got to improve. It's got to get better, because we're in here now talking about this,” Johnson said. “So, we’ve got to do some things better, and we will. We'll continue to find where we need to improve, and we'll try to address those needs and improve.”
