OXFORD, Miss. — Georgia Tech’s season, and the coaching career of Danny Hall, came to an end Sunday in the Oxford Regional where Mississippi defeated the Yellow Jackets 11-9.
Hall, who announced in March he would step away from his current role, finished his career 1,452-793-1 (1,244-676-1 at Tech).
“More about the team (right now),” Hall said after Sunday’s loss. “My deal is what it is. But I feel for these guys. I know how hard they worked, I know how hard my staff works. A lot gets poured into a season. I just told ‘em how proud I am. We were ACC champs in the regular season. That’s hard to do. Made an NCAA regional. That’s always the goal, is trying to get into a regional. If you get in there, then you got a chance to get to Omaha. It’s hard to win regionals, too. But again, I think these guys have accomplished a lot.”
Sunday’s result was excruciatingly disappointing for Hall’s team which had won the ACC’s regular season title. It had started the weekend 1-0 with a 9-2 win over Western Kentucky, but allowed 13 runs to No. 4 seed Murray State on Saturday and continued to have major issues Sunday keeping the Ole Miss offense quiet.
In two losses at Swayze Stadium, Tech allowed 23 earned runs, gave up 28 hits, walked 12 hitters and surrendered seven home runs.
“Yeah, we just didn’t make enough pitches,” Hall said. “They’ve got a great hitting lineup, kind of up and down the lineup, run the ball out of the ballpark. It was our bugaboo the last couple days, giving up homers, not making pitches, not finishing guys when we got ahead. Good ballclubs will make you pay for that, and they did.
“We could say the same thing about our guys. We made some of their guys pay when they didn’t make their pitches. But they made a few more pitches, a few more plays than we did and got a key hit, particularly late in the game, when they needed to get one.”
In a 9-9 game in the seventh Sunday, Ole Miss leadoff man Mitchell Sanford legged out an infield single to the left of the second base bag with one out and then stole second. With two outs in the inning, Will Furniss ripped a single to center to score Sanford and put the Rebels up 10-9.
Campbell Smithwick hit a solo home run in the eighth to provide some insurance.
Tech got Drew Rogers aboard in the ninth courtesy of an Ole Miss throwing error. Connor Shouse then beat out what was intended to be a sacrifice bunt. That brought Drew Burress to the plate.
Ole Miss closer Connor Spencer came in got Burress to hit a sacrifice fly to right field. Kent Schmidt was intentionally walked to load the bases for Kyle Lodise. Lodise struck out swinging to end the game.
“It sucks,” Burress said of the loss. “He deserves more and he deserves for us to send him out on a much better note than losing in a regional. And that’s on us. He’s a legend. He’s gonna be one of the names that in 20, 40, 100 years in college baseball people are still gonna be talking about Danny Hall. It’s been a blessing to be able to be coached by him. It just sucks we couldn’t finish it off better for him.”
Tech wasted no time Saturday denting the scoreboard when Schmidt lined a two-run homer into the right-field bullpen in the first inning. Lodise went back-to-back by squeezing a solo shot inside the left-field fair pole making it 3-0.
But in the bottom of the inning, Ole Miss teed off on Tech starter Jaylen Paden. Luke Hill hit an RBI single and then Isaac Humphrey belted a three-run homer giving the Rebels a 4-3 lead. Austin Fawley’s RBI single to left made it 5-3 and chased Paden from the game.
Humphrey’s RBI sacrifice fly in the second put Ole Miss up 6-3, but Carson Kerce doubled in Vahn Lackey in the top of the third to make it a 6-4 game. Burress got the Jackets a bit closer with a solo homer to left in the fourth making it 6-5.
Schmidt’s second bomb of the day tied the game at 6-all in the fourth. Later in the inning, Caleb Daniel sent a double into the right-field corner that scored a pair and gave Tech the lead back at 8-6.
Tech reliever Carson Ballard had retired nine straight hitters until Judd Utermark hit a solo home run to center to start the bottom of the fifth. Ballard would leave later in the inning with two on and one out for Riley Stanford who walked Austin Fraley to load the bases and then walked Mitchell Sanford to bring in the game-tying run.
Ballard was charged with three earned runs over four innings of work and threw a season-high 71 pitches.
Daniel put Tech back on top with a two-out RBI single up the middle in the sixth. Hayden Federico countered with a two-out RBI knock of his own in the bottom half making it 9-9.
Tech didn’t have another answer from there.
“Really proud of, not only our guys today, but just proud of ‘em for the whole year,” Hall added. “Kind of made a point to tell ‘em that in the locker room. It stings right now for sure. But just proud of what they did throughout the year.”
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