Everything Wes Johnson said following Georgia’s elimination win over Texas

With its season on the line, Georgia managed a 2-0 win over Texas Tuesday night to stave off elimination and move on to face Oklahoma again Wednesday at 7 p.m.

For the second time in three days, Georgia’s pitching staff completely shut down Texas’ lineup, led by the efforts of Dylan Vigue and Justin Byrd.

The duo combined to shut out the Longhorns and racked up 12 strikeouts. In two games versus Texas, Georgia’s pitching staff gave up just one run and tallied 27 strikeouts.

Following the win, UGA coach Wes Johnson spoke to the media about the win and where the Bulldogs go moving forward.

Here is everything Johnson said.

Opening statement:

“I thought it was a really good game tonight. Very entertaining. It was going to be tough to score, the conditions, the flags blowing in like they were. There were some balls hit really hard that I don’t know if they even got to the track. So you felt like it was going to be a pitching duel.

Their guy came out and was electric for four — I think he may have had nine, 10 strikeouts through four. I can’t remember the exact number. We just told our guys we’ve got to keep battling. It’s going to be tough to score tonight on both sides.

I thought Dylan came out, got us off to a really good start. He had eight punches through four. And then what Justin Byrd was able to do to come in and just attack, attack the strike zone, force contact, force early swings on a night, like I say, when it’s really, really tough to score, is going to be the key to that.

And then as crazy as this sounds, we bunted tonight, I think that was our third true sacrifice on the year. It was just going to be that kind of night. And then we actually scored that second run on a ball that’s, I don’t know, 40 feet behind third on a tag play. So just proud our guys, the way we got in there and competed."

On applying any past experiences with 2023 LSU title run to this UGA team:

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you go back. We lost a really close game. Those games — all these games are still pretty vivid in your mind. And I think we lost — man, you just got me — 4-3, 3-2, something like that, to Wake in a very similar fashion as we lost last night. Came back, had to play another conference opponent in Tennessee again in an elimination game. Was fortunate enough to get that one like we did tonight. And, yes, so you draw on those experiences, and just tell the guys, yeah, it’s been done before. It’s not an impossible task.

But you’re not going to win three games or whatever by trying to do it in one. And, so, you know first step tonight was go out and play in a really tough conditions against a really, really good pitching staff. And so we got that one and now tomorrow’s just another day. We’re just going to come out. We get to play baseball again tomorrow, and we get to play nine innings. So what more could you ask?"

On the confidence you had sending Ryan Black home to score in the seventh inning:

“I think our third base coach, Brock Bennett, did a phenomenal job. We had been talking in between innings about you’re going to have to be aggressive tonight and force some action, because, like I said, the conditions. And I think he did a phenomenal job.

When the two young men kind of collided, that’s when Ryan took off and gave us an opportunity to get there. If either one of them catch it clean and don’t collide and we go, we’re probably out."

On Tre Phelps playing more free after his RBI double:

“I thought he was pressing yesterday. I didn’t think he was pressing all day. We did a lot of things this morning and at BP. And, like I say, Tre is a young man. Every player’s different. They have a different personality. They play different. Some guys have to be very stoic and intent. Some guys have to play really loose.

I thought Tre last night was trying to do too much. I thought even though he struck out his first two times, guys, man, Luke was really good for four innings, man. And so I didn’t think his swings were bad the first two at-bats.

Just thought that Luke was good and executed some pitches into some spots we had trouble hitting. So I wasn’t worried about Tre."

On envisioning Dylan Vigue pitching on this stage while recruiting him out of the portal:

“Yeah, I mean, always, when you recruit players, I mean, everybody’s goal is to get here. So, yeah, you envision that. I think, guys — we’d be up here a long time if we talked about what I’ve seen from him from the portal to now.

The biggest thing is, as he talked about, sometimes players need belief and confidence, and they need to know that no matter what, you’re going to believe in them. And when they can feel that, it frees them up instead of trying to make perfect pitches. And we’ve seen that from Dylan. You’ve seen him grow a lot this year.

He’s had a couple of hiccups in the road. The ball come back off his leg and had some issues with his forearm cramping earlier in the year. And we were real precaution at first, and then obviously he was fine. So you look at the adversity he’s dealt with this year. We knew what he did tonight, what he was capable of doing all year.“

On the decision to have Kolby Branch lay down a sacrifice bunt:

“First question, yeah, I mean, you just gotta — we practice bunting. I promise. We do. But, so, tonight it was like — and Kolby’s one of our better bunters. So we felt very confident with it.”

On if Joey Volchko will pitch Thursday against Oklahoma: