Andrew Gist wasn’t expected to throw more than three or four innings in the first game of the Georgia-Georgia Tech season series Tuesday. The Georgia pitcher ended up playing the pivotal role in the Bulldogs’ 3-1 win over the Yellow Jackets at Tech’s Russ Chandler Stadium.
Gist went eight innings, a career high, and held the Jackets to four hits to earn the win over the No. 19 Jackets. Only a ninth-inning home run by Tech’s Ryan Peurifoy, which finally chased Gist, saved the Jackets from their second shutout loss of the season.
“He was outstanding,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said. “That’s the guy that we recruited. We felt like he could do that. He’s been good at times and struggles at times, but that was by far his best outing.”
Gist’s work enabled single runs pushed across in the fifth, sixth and eighth to stand up. Georgia (18-16) scored its runs on a two-out triple by No. 9 hitter Nick King in the fifth, an 0-2 single by Michael Curry in the sixth and a two-out single by Keegan McGovern in the seventh.
The runs in the fifth and eighth were both scored after Tech pitchers (Cole Pitts in the fifth and Micah Carpenter in the eighth) retired the first two batters.
“Two-out hits, I think we had six of them (Tuesday),” Stricklin said. “That’s how you win games.”
The win for the Bulldogs eases the bite of a weekend sweep at the hands of No. 3 Texas A&M, which took the three-game series with a combined score of 30-3.
In making it to the first batter of the ninth, Gist gave up four hits, struck out six, walked none and threw just 95 pitches, 67 for strikes. Gist, from Cumming, is in his first year with the team after transferring from Walters State Community College and has primarily pitched in relief.
“Coming out here and getting a win against them, a top-25 team in the country, is a pretty awesome feelings,” Gist said.
Tech’s four hits were its fewest of the season. The Jackets came into the game with a .312 batting average, 17th in the country.
“Credit their guy,” Tech coach Danny Hall said. “He probably pitched as good as he’s pitched all year.”
As is typical in this rivalry stocked with homegrown players, Gist knows a handful of Jackets, though not from travel ball or high school. This past summer, he played on the same Cape Cod summer-league team, the Brewster Whitecaps, as Tech players Kel Johnson, Brandon Gold, Zac Ryan and Peurifoy.
Stricklin is now 3-3 against Tech (23-9), where he served as a volunteer coach for Hall 1998-99 and later an assistant 2002-04. Hall is 90-70-1.
“I try not to make a big deal about it,” Stricklin said of his time at Tech. “It’s just another game. It’s a huge rivalry, obviously, but I can’t let myself get too emotional because then that kidn of messes with the kids.”
Gist faced three batters in each of the first six innings and was the beneficiary of two Tech base-running mistakes that turned into double plays.
In the bottom of the third, Joey Bart failed to retouch second base while returning to first after UGA centerfielder Stephen Wrenn ran down Peurifoy’s shot to the right-center gap and was called out on appeal. In the bottom of the fifth, Kel Johnson led off with a single but was doubled off first when second baseman LJ Talley snared Tristin English’s line drive up the middle and threw to first ahead of Johnson.
“Wrenn did make a great catch; he went a long way to catch that,” Hall said. “But that’s literally just giving them two outs when we shouldn’t have given them those outs.”
Pitts gave up one run in five innings with five hits, three strikeouts and no walks to take the loss. He was pulled after five as Hall will move him to the weekend rotation, pitching this Sunday against No. 14 N.C. State.
