4 reasons why Georgia can beat Oklahoma twice to make CWS final

OMAHA, Neb. — The odds are stacked against Georgia, as they should be.

By losing a winner’s bracket game to Oklahoma on Monday, the Bulldogs put themselves in position of needing to beat the Sooners twice to win their bracket at the College World Series and advance to the championship series.

But, after winning an elimination game over Texas on Tuesday, it is entirely within the Bulldogs’ capacity to pull it off.

Here’s how:

Pitchers ready to go

One of the biggest advantages that teams in Oklahoma’s position normally have — that their opponents are running out of capable arms — does not especially apply here.

Thanks to Joey Volchko and Caden Aoki throwing complete games in Georgia’s first two games, and Dylan Vigue and Justin Byrd combining to cover all nine innings Tuesday against the Longhorns, coach Wes Johnson still has sufficient pitching at his disposal.

That includes Matt Scott (3.88 ERA in 55⅔ innings), Zach Brown (3.53 ERA in 35⅔ innings) and Paul Farley (4.53 ERA in 43⅔ innings).

“Any time you fall into an elimination bracket, any time you can save pitching, it’s massive,” Johnson said.

Oklahoma will rely on Nick Wesloski (4.03 ERA in 29 innings), who has started one game in his career. He will be the third freshman to start for the Sooners in Omaha, Nebraska.

Hitting has to come around

This may come off as grasping for straws, but Georgia’s offense can’t keep hitting this poorly, can it? A lineup that has destroyed pitching the entire season is now hitting .186 at Charles Schwab Field and slugging .340. Their season averages before the CWS were .326 and .628, respectively, both in the top 5 nationally.

Tuesday, Texas’ Luke Harrison struck out 11 Bulldogs, a career high. That followed Oklahoma’s Xander Mercurius doing the same on Monday with nine strikeouts.

All-American Tre Phelps looked more comfortable at the plate Tuesday, getting Georgia’s first hit off Harrison with a run-scoring double in the fifth and then reaching base with a seeing-eye single. In Omaha, he had been 1-for-11 with four strikeouts before his two hits Tuesday.

“I know (assistant head coach Will Coggin) will turn it around and probably not have the strikeout-to-walk ratio we did (Tuesday),” Phelps said. “I’m 100% confident of that.”

The right pilot

Over the past 25 College World Series, the team in Oklahoma’s position has gone on to win the bracket and advance to the final 76% of the time.

Johnson was a pitching coach for LSU in 2023 when it was part of the trend-breaking 24%. That year, the Tigers lost a winner’s bracket game to No. 1 national seed Wake Forest, beat Tennessee in an elimination game and then defeated the Demon Deacons two games in a row before winning the national championship.

Johnson said he has drawn on that experience in assuring players it’s been done before — and encouraging them to not get too keyed up.

“Now, (Wednesday’s) just another day,” he said. “We’re just going to come out, we get to play baseball again (Wednesday) and we get to play nine innings. What more could you ask?”

Just get to Thursday

If the Bulldogs can win Wednesday, they could play a tough-to-beat hole card in a winner-take-all game — ace Volchko, who dominated Texas in their opener on Saturday.

He would be throwing on only four days’ rest where typically he has six. And he also threw a season-high 114 pitches against the Longhorns.

But he has thrown multiple times this past season on five days’ rest.

Asked Tuesday about the possibility of Volchko pitching Thursday, Johnson said, “We’ve got to win (Wednesday) to even get to Thursday. So I’m not even thinking about that.”

But, for what it’s worth, Johnson saw it happen at LSU. In that 2023 season, future Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes threw 123 pitches in the Tigers’ CWS opener and came back five days later to help the Tigers beat Wake Forest in the winner-take-all game in an eight-inning, 120-pitch start.

Will it happen?

We’ll see.

Could it happen?