Walk-off home run brings Georgia’s season to shocking end

“We planned on playing for a long time, it didn’t happen.”

The No. 7 nationally-seeded Bulldogs see their season end with a 43-17 mark, while Oklahoma State advances to play Duke (39-19) needing to win in order to force a decisive game on Monday night that will determine who wins the Athens NCAA regional.

Duke beat Georgia on Saturday night, 6-3, to send the Bulldogs into the loser’s bracket and put the team’s back against the wall entering the Sunday action.

The Cowboys lost to Duke on Friday and beat Binghamton on Saturday, and they didn’t waste any time jumping out to a 3-0 lead on UGA starter JT Quinn through two innings.

Quinn settled and dealt two scoreless innings before exiting after a season-high 78 pitches, but Oklahoma State looked to be on solid ground with left-hander Harrison Bodendorf on the mound. The OSU 6-foot-5 hurler brought a 10-1 record and 2.77 ERA into the action.

The Bulldogs, however, battled back against Bodendorf with a five-run third inning on the first of Slate Alford’s two home runs in the game — a two-run shot that tied it — and a Tre Phelps’ run-producing double followed by Christian Adams two-run homer.

The fireworks carried from the scoreboard into the dugouts, the players’ bench jockeying drawing warnings from the umpire and visits with the head coaches before subsiding.

The action continued on the field as the teams battled desperately to keep postseason hopes alive in this elimination game.

Georgia extended the lead to 7-3 on Alford’s second homer in the fourth and Adams’ second home run of the day in the fifth, chasing the Cowboys’ ace off the mound.

But an Oklahoma State hitting attack that produced 15 home runs through the first three games of the regional -- including the crushing final blow -- was not finished.

The Cowboys scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning without the power of the long ball, filling up scorecards with three singles, a walk, a hit batsman, an error, fielder’s choice and sacrifice fly.

Georgia reliever Brian Zeldin, a Pace Academy product who transferred back to the Peach State last year, came on to extinguish the Cowboys rally in the fifth before handing the ball over to DJ Radtke in the sixth with an out and two runners on via walk.

Radtke, from Marietta, induced a line out before a deep infield single produced a play at the plate, as second baseman Ryan Black delivered a strike to Henry Hunter in time to nail OSU’s Brock Thompson at the plate for the final out.

Georgia’s momentum carried into the top of the seventh, the Bulldogs’ reclaiming the lead when Adams stayed hot with an RBI single that made it 8-7.

One inning later, Kentucky transfer Nolan McCarthy singled in Daniel Jackson, to make it 9-7, after Jackson had walked and stole second.

Radtke exited before the start of the ninth inning after a heroic 2 2/3 innings of one-hit, scoreless relief against the 10 batters he faced.

Georgia turned the ball over to Emory transfer Tyler McLoughlin -- who had not appeared since May 9 vs. Alabama -- and Oklahoma State rallied once more.

Nolan Schubart drew a walk and Kollin Ritchie drove a home run over the right field wall to tie the game at 9-9 and bring a sixth UGA pitcher into the game, reliever Zach Harris.

Harris gave up a single, fanned the next batter and then induced a ground ball that UGA nearly turned for a double play, but Harris was unable to get to the bag in time to receive Ryan Black’s relay throw for what would have been the third out.

Oklahoma State’s Thompson ended the game two pitches later, driving Harris’ second offering over the left-field wall for the walk-off home run that ended Georgia’s season.

“If you’re going to have a chance to play a second game, you’re going to have to use different pitchers,” Johnson said. “We had Jordan Stephens ready to go, we kinda held him back in case we were going to start him.

“You don’t know ... how far you’re going to get, it’s baseball, it’s really hard. I’ve told people for years, winning is really, really hard, and we didn’t get it today, but there’s so many positives to build on with this team.”

Johnson signed a contract extension through 2031 announced on May 21, the terms of which were not disclosed.