Georgia baseball wins final SEC game, series over Texas A&M

“You look at our RPI, you look at our nonconference schedule, you look at what we’ve done at home, we won two road series,” UGA coach Wes Johnson said. “Yeah, I mean, I think we are (a national seed), but it’s the committee.”

The Bulldogs will play in the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, next week before their postseason fate is revealed. Georgia will either play after a first-round bye on Wednesday or a double-bye on Thursday, depending on if Vanderbilt beats Kentucky on Saturday.

UGA also remained undefeated in home series and improved to 29-4 at Foley Field.

Saturday’s late offensive outburst was an encouraging sight after the Bulldogs looked helpless on Friday. UGA suffered its first home shutout in three years, falling 6-0 to the Aggies.

Georgia scored its first four runs on a pair of homers before taking the lead for good on three “manufactured runs” in the bottom of the seventh. Kolby Branch and Nolan McCarthy reached first and second base with one out, bringing Ryan Black to the plate.

Black lined a hard single straight to Aggie right fielder Terrence Kiel II. Branch had just enough speed to beat the relay throw home for a 5-4 lead.

A Texas A&M mental error on a ground ball loaded the bases for Ryland Zaborowski, who was playing his first game since injuring his elbow on April 26.

“It was so awesome, my first at-bat, I kind of got that little standing ovation of cheers and that just boosted my confidence,” Zaborowski said.

Zaborowski bounced the first pitch he saw over the third baseman, plating two more runs for the 7-4 advantage.

Johnson shared his philosophy on momentum Friday night after the Bulldogs struck out 15 times with no walks and three hits.

“Momentum is things of consecutive push, and you’ve got to have consecutive people pushing before you can say you have momentum,” Johnson said. “If not, it’s just called a swing.”

Georgia and Texas A&M found themselves in a heavyweight boxing match of momentum “swings.” Bats were quiet through the first half of the game before Slate Alford woke both lineups up with a swing of his own.

Alford came to the plate with one out after Henry Hunter took his second-straight hit-by-pitch. The SEC veteran delivered the game’s first momentum change two pitches later, mashing an 0-1 slider high into the afternoon sky.

Foley Field’s volume and partisan crowd rose slowly as the ball continued to carry. Texas A&M center fielder Jace LaViolette drifted to the padded wall and froze, watching Alford’s homer land in the TV camera structure over his head.

Foley erupted as Alford rounded the bases for his 17th homer of the season.

Texas A&M’s Bear Harrison bit right back in the next half-inning, mashing another two-run homer over the same section of the center-field wall.

And so began the shootout.

Georgia responded with another two-run bomb in the bottom half of the sixth. Hunter golfed an inside change-up into the standing tables behind right field, plating himself and Zaborowski for a 4-2 lead.

But the Aggies needed just two more pitches to tie it in the top of the seventh. Texas A&M hit back-to-back home runs on DJ Radtke’s first two pitches to make it 4-4.

Kolten Smith relieved Radtke and finally settled things down for Georgia. The junior escaped the inning without any more damage, preserving the 4-4 tie before Georgia’s go-ahead three-run inning.

Then Smith struck out the side to keep the 7-4 lead in the top of the eighth. It was the first half-inning since the top of the fifth to go scoreless.

Zach Harris relieved Smith in the top of the ninth. Georgia’s closer retired the first two Aggies he faced, gave up a solo homer and slammed the door with one more strikeout.

For all the swings in the game, Johnson credited Alford’s homer as the moment he knew his team was in the driver’s seat.

“I thought when Slate hit that, and I know they answered back, and then we go, and then they answer back, but at that point it was like we just kept pushing,” Johnson said. “You felt good, I felt good with Smith coming in out of the pen.

“We knew if we could get the lead, I felt really, really good with Harris.”