Georgia baseball bucks trend, finally wins an SEC series

ATHENS – After Georgia blew yet another late-inning SEC lead against Kentucky on Friday night, coach Scott Stricklin made a proclamation.

“It’s going to flip at some point,” the Bulldogs’ 10th-year coach said. “We just need something good to happen. We’ve got to make something good happen.”

Stricklin’s statement proved prophetic as Georgia rallied to win the last two games of the series on Sunday and claiming its first conference series of the season in the process. The Bulldogs got a complete-game, shutout performance from pitcher Liam Sullivan to take the first seven-inning game, 3-0, then found a potential answer for a Game 3 starter when Charlie Goldstein stepped up and led a Georgia to a 6-2 win later Sunday afternoon.

The victories snapped a four-game SEC losing streak for the Bulldogs (18-14, 3-9 SEC) and mostly erased the bitterness of another bullpen collapse in Friday night’s opener. Saturday’s game was washed out by weather and moved to Sunday as the teams played a seven-inning, Easter doubleheader.

“That’s the way that the Georgia Bulldogs should play,” Stricklin said of taking the series from the 10th-ranked Wildcats (27-5, 9-3 SEC), who had won 23 of its last 24 games heading into Sunday. “That’s the product that we should have on the field, what we did this weekend. Quite frankly, it’s disappointing we didn’t sweep this series.”

The Bulldogs would have swept if their bullpen hadn’t blown yet another Friday-night lead. Starter Jaden Woods had pitched 6.2 scoreless innings before giving up a two-out, two-RBI double to end his day holding a 4-2 lead. But Matthew Hoskins and Chandler Marsh, Georgia’s top two relievers, couldn’t make it hold up. They combined to walk six and gave up four earned runs in the eighth and ninth innings on the way to a 7-4 loss.

Similarly, the Bulldogs dropped 5-4 decisions against South Carolina and Auburn in the first two weeks of conference play after carrying leads into the final innings.