The Georgia-Georgia Tech three-game baseball series got underway on Friday with the Bulldogs scoring a 6-5 victory at Foley Field in Athens.
The No. 4-ranked Georgia baseball team will play No. 17 Georgia Tech at 2 p.m. in Atlanta on the Yellow Jackets’ campus on Saturday. The teams will conclude the series at 2 p.m at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville.
The Bulldogs (9-1) got a 10-strikeout performance on Friday from pitching ace Emerson Hancock (2-0), improving their record to 4-0 in one-run games this season.
Pinch-hitter Patrick Sullivan provided what proved to be the winning hit in the seventh inning with an RBI single up the middle.
Georgia reliever Ryan Webb escaped a bases-loaded jam with the lead intact in the ninth to record his first save of the season, tossing the final 3 1/3 innings.
“A lot of emotion in this rivalry, two top-25 teams that are competing and then you put the in-state aspect into it,” UGA coach Scott Stricklin said in a school release.
“It was great to come out on top, but now we’ve got to win the series.We had a couple guys come off the bench and they were ready to pinch-hit and got the job done including Patrick Sullivan with a big RBI-single.”
Georgia returns to Athens to play Georgia Southern next Tuesday (5 p.m.) and Wednesday (6:35 p.m.) at Foley Field.
The Bulldogs open the SEC portion of their schedule March 13 at Florida. Georgia’s first SEC home series is against South Carolina starting on Friday, March 20.
Georgia baseball notebook
• With a walk in the first inning, junior Tucker Bradley has reached base safely in all ten games this season. In the fourth inning he hit his 5th homerun of the season – a team high to go with 16 RBI.
• Sophomore Ben Anderson extended his hitting streak to five games with an RBI single in the fourth.
• Hancock struck out 10 batters, which is the fourth time he has accomplished this feat in his career, and the first time this season.
Junior Emerson Hancock Photo: Tony Walsh/UGA Sports