Georgia falls short to Oklahoma in critical winner’s bracket game

OMAHA, Neb. – Georgia was not at its best Monday night and now its national-title aspirations are greatly impaired.

In a winner’s bracket game at the College World Series, the Bulldogs stumbled through a sloppy first inning, had their potent bats quieted and fell to Oklahoma 4-3.

“(The Sooners) are doing a really good job of, when they’re getting the mistake up (in the strike zone), of getting off a good swing,” Georgia coach Wes Johnson said. “Quite frankly, that was the difference in the game.”

Now in the loser’s bracket, Georgia will play Texas in an elimination game Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET while the Sooners will wait and rest to play the winner on Wednesday. Should the Bulldogs defeat the Longhorns Tuesday, they would have to beat Oklahoma Wednesday night and then again Thursday.

“It’s the same process,” starter Caden Aoki said. “The same mindset that we’ve had all season. I mean, if we change something now, then that’s when it’s all going to go bad.”

Down 4-3 in the top of the ninth, Georgia had runners on first and second with one out and its two best hitters coming to bat. But Tre Phelps struck out and national player of the year Dan Jackson flied to center after homering the previous inning, prompting Sooners to burst forth from the dugout and the bullpen to celebrate.

It is an estimable hole that Johnson’s team has fallen into. In the past 25 College World Series, the team that won the second-round winner’s bracket game has won 38 of 50 brackets to advance to the championship round.

The thousands of Georgia fans who have traveled to this metropolis on the plains to support their beloved Bulldogs were as muted much of Monday night as they were boisterous Saturday, when Georgia rolled to a 7-1 win over Texas behind Joey Volchko’s complete-game gem.

“We had some opportunities to get back into the game, we didn’t cash in on those,” Johnson said.

After exploiting a shaky first inning by Texas to win Saturday’s opener, the Bulldogs wobbled similarly.

In the bottom of the first, the All-American Aoki gave up a leadoff double, hit the second batter and then threw wildly to second on a pickoff attempt to advance the runners.

A grounder to short scored Oklahoma’s first run. And then after starting out 0-2 against cleanup hitter Jaxon Willits, Aoki gave up a two-out home run on a 2-2 pitch for a 3-0 Sooners lead.

It was a most unanticipated start for Georgia and Aoki, a fifth-year senior whom Johnson described Sunday as having a “slow heartbeat” and someone who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the College World Series stage.

“Not to sugarcoat it, my stuff was really bad early on; it was, simply put,” Aoki said. “And I kind of knew that, I kind of realized that early on and they didn’t miss the pitches that I left in the heart of the plate.”

Aoki recovered to spin a gem, finishing with an eight-inning, 115-pitch complete game in which he gave up eight hits, struck out six and walked none.

“Aoki, he made some big pitches in that game,” Oklahoma coach Skip Johnson said. “I’m telling you, big pitches. It could have went either way.”

Meanwhile, Georgia could not solve Oklahoma starter Xander Mercurius.

Consistently getting ahead in the count against the Bulldogs’ vaunted lineup, the freshman held Georgia to three runs in 7 1/3 innings with nine strikeouts against two walks in the fourth start of his career.

“I told Skip after the game, Xander was impressive (Monday night) and really dominated us with the fastball,” Wes Johnson said. “We’ve got to be ready to hit the fastball, and we didn’t.”

Georgia, arguably the top-hitting team in Division I, has managed just six extra-base hits in two games at Charles Schwab Field.

The Bulldogs made a late charge, as Jackson homered in the eighth to cut the lead to 4-3. After Georgia put two on after that, Ryan Wynn hit a two-out line drive to right that surely would have cleared Foley Field’s short right-field fence but was caught at the warning track.

That was followed by the unsuccessful rally attempt in the top of the ninth.