Georgia baseball could not match No. 3 Florida’s star power in an 11-6 loss on Sunday.
The Bulldogs (19-17, 4-11 SEC) dropped their fourth SEC series of the season and their eighth straight at Condron Ballpark in Gainesville.
“It stinks,” UGA coach Scott Stricklin said on 960 The Ref. “We lost the series, that’s the bottom line. You want to win it and we had a chance to win it.
“We just didn’t get it done.”
Stricklin’s team had no answers for Florida’s two-way star Jac Caglianone. The nation’s home run leader hit two homers for seven RBI and gave up two runs in five innings as the starting pitcher.
Georgia battled back from an early 6-0 deficit to trail 6-4 going into the bottom of the eighth inning. That was when the Gators put the series away with a five-run output.
The Bulldogs snagged a 13-11 win from Florida on Friday night before falling in a 2-1 pitcher’s duel on Saturday. UGA is back on the road at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Clemson’s Kingsmore Stadium.
The Tigers (21-15, 5-9 ACC) beat the Bulldogs 8-1 in Athens last Tuesday. Georgia’s stacked SEC schedule will continue next weekend when it hosts No. 5 Arkansas at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
The Razorbacks (28-7, 10-4) represent the final leg of Georgia’s four-weekend stretch against top-10 competition.
Ben Anderson led the offense hitting 3 for 6 with two runs, a double and a triple.
Georgia’s hitters had plenty more opportunities to score, but rarely made the clutch hit. UGA was 2-of-13 hitting with runners in scoring position.
Stricklin specifically mentioned the top of the sixth inning, when the Bulldogs had runners on second and third with no outs. UGA’s next three batters all grounded out, failing to drive home any runs.
“Had a lot of traffic, had a lot of opportunities,” Stricklin said. “That’s when you’ve got to do damage, and they did it. We didn’t.”
The Gators knocked reigning SEC Pitcher of the Week Liam Sullivan out in the fourth inning. Sullivan surrendered six earned runs on seven hits and two walks in 3.1 innings.
Luke Wagner had a long and strong outing to clam things down for UGA. Wagner led the Bulldogs through four scoreless innings before three earned runs in the eighth ended his day.
Georgia’s 4-11 conference record is the worst in the SEC East and the second-worst overall at the halfway point in the SEC schedule. UGA needs to finish with a top 12 record in the SEC to earn a spot in the conference tournament.
