Baseball: Needed it, got it
Georgia uses first-inning rally, freshmen arms to top LSU in SEC Tournament
Georgia’s SEC Tournament started as badly as it could have.
Freshman pitcher Luke Wagner, pitching in the biggest game of his young college career, allowed the first three hitters to reach for LSU. A game the Bulldogs needed to win to maintain their NCAA Tournament hopes looked to be on the verge of spiraling out of control.
Wagner settled down, limiting the damage to one run. A four-run inning followed in the bottom of the first, catapulting Georgia (31-23, 14-17 SEC) to a 4-1 victory over LSU (34-22, 13-18) in the first round of the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala.
After loading the bases in the first, Wagner induced LSU’s Cade Doughty to bounce into a double play. That put the Tigers on top 1-0, but it also recorded the first two outs of the game.
Following a walk, Wagner escaped the inning with a strikeout. The freshman limited the damage and gave his team a chance to respond in the bottom half of the inning.
“It’s bases loaded, nobody out, 2-0 count with Doughty up. You’re thinking, ‘Oh no,’” Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin said. “We had guys stretching in the bullpen already and we didn’t have an out in the first inning, and we get out of it.”
Wagner has had his ups and downs throughout his freshman season. Stricklin recalled telling him, ‘It’s time to grow up,’ during his start at Missouri. In the biggest start of the season, Wagner responded with one of his best outings.
Once they came to the plate in the bottom of the first, Georgia mounted a response. Center fielder Ben Anderson started the party with a double to left. Three batters later, right fielder Riley King came to the plate with the bases loaded and one out.
He hit a hard grounder to third, but LSU couldn’t complete the double play and Anderson scored to tie the game at one.
“We got that one run, I feel like everybody kind of relaxed in the dugout,” left fielder Chaney Rogers said. “I know I kind of relaxed in the on-deck circle.”
Following another walk, Rogers broke the game open with a bases-clearing double off a hanging breaking ball to put the Bulldogs up 4-1 after one inning.
That proved to be all the run support Georgia needed. Wagner tiptoed in and out of danger, scattering six hits and the one run over 3.1 innings of work.
Georgia then turned it over to Jaden Woods, who earned SEC All-Freshman honors earlier this week. He fired 3.2 perfect innings, striking out five and not walking one.
LSU mounted one final rally in the eighth, loading the bases with one out against new pitcher Ben Harris. But the Virginia transfer danced out of the inning with two huge strikeouts, extinguishing the last embers of the Tigers’ fire.
“That was our biggest concern was navigating through that top of the order,” Stricklin said. “That’s why we brought Ben Harris in the eighth. We felt like the close was really in the eighth because that part of the order was up. He made it interesting, but he gutted it out.”
The win enhances Georgia’s resume for the NCAA Tournament, giving the Bulldogs 14 conference wins. Stricklin said after the game the Bulldogs were “absolutely” in the tournament with the win over the Tigers. He will find out if he’s right next Monday when the field of 64 is announced.
Georgia’s tournament run continues against Arkansas on Wednesday, with first pitch slated for approximately 5:30 p.m. ET.