Georgia baseball’s NCAA Tournament campaign took a significant blow on Sunday when it dropped a series to Ole Miss in walk-off fashion.
The Bulldogs (24-20, 8-13 SEC) tied the game in the top half of the eighth and ninth innings but couldn’t contain the Rebels (23-21, 5-16) lineup in the bottom halves.
UGA dropped its fifth SEC series, falling 8-7 at Swayze Field in Oxford, Mississippi.
Georgia entered the eighth inning trailing 5-2 before Parks Harber and Will David drove in three runs. Ole Miss responded with a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth to take a 7-5 lead.
Ben Anderson tied the game up again in the ninth, hitting a hanging breaking ball over the right-field wall for a two-run homer.
Anderson’s heroics continued in the bottom half of the inning, as the center fielder robbed a would-be walk-off home run. The veteran’s efforts were rendered useless, though, as the Rebels scored on a walk-off single three at-bats later.
Ole Miss’ TJ McCants served a single right to left fielder Connor Tate, whose throw beat Rebel pinch runner Judd Utermark to home plate.
Utermark slid and collided with catcher Fernando Gonzalez. Gonzalez dropped the ball upon tagging Utermark, winning the game for Ole Miss.
Anderson led the team, hitting 2 for 4 with two RBI, a homer, two runs and a walk.
Charlie Condon homered in the loss to keep one of the team’s most impressive streaks active. The redshirt freshman has homered in every SEC series this season.
Starter Liam Sullivan struggled for the third straight weekend. The junior surrendered six hits and three walks for four earned runs in four innings.
Sullivan has a 9.62 ERA over his last three outings.
Georgia’s hitters may have been its saving grace in the last few innings of Game Three, but a lack of clutch hitting hurt the team all week long.
The Bulldog lineup hit 8 for 48 with runners in scoring position this week. UGA finished the week 1-3 with a loss to Georgia State on Tuesday.
Indeed, Georgia’s bats finished the day strong, but two hits through the first six innings made for a lackluster performance.
“I didn’t feel like we busted it very good for the first six innings,” UGA coach Scott Stricklin said on 960 The Ref. “We did not compete very well at the beginning of the game, and that’s where we lost it.”
It was Ole Miss’ first SEC series win of the season. The Rebels are the last-place team in the conference.
No doubt, a series loss to the SEC’s lowest team will substantially hurt Georgia’s postseason resume.
The Bulldogs appeared to be trending up after an abysmal 1-9 start to conference play, upsetting No. 15 Kentucky and sweeping No. 7 Arkansas to move back into the tournament conversation.
The loss to Ole Miss doesn’t shatter the Bulldogs’ postseason dreams, though. Things just don’t get easier, as they host a red-hot No. 24-ranked Tennessee, visit a struggling Missouri team and host top-ranked LSU to finish the regular season.
The Bulldogs likely need to win six of their last nine games to earn an NCAA Tournament spot. About 68 percent of SEC teams with 14 conference wins have earned a bid since the tournament expanded in 1999.
That number drops to 38 percent for teams with 13 SEC wins.
Georgia remains the No. 11 team in the SEC, trailing Auburn, Alabama and Texas A&M by a game.
The chase starts with the Volunteers (30-14, 11-10) next weekend. Tennessee is riding a seven-game win streak after consecutive sweeps of No. 5 Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.
Georgia returns to action against Kennesaw State at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Foley Field. The Bulldogs will look for the season sweep after beating the Owls by a 6-4 decision on April 4.
