The University of Georgia baseball team defeated the No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks, 6-5, in the series opener on Thursday evening at Foley Field before 2,934 spectators.
“We are fighting,” Georgia’s Ike Cousins head baseball coach Scott Stricklin said. “There is no quit in this team. They know where we are. We talked about the conversation we are in right now is a conversation we don’t like, and we need to change that conversation. We change it by the way that we play. We are playing better. We are trending in the right way, but now we have to win the series. It’s not about playing well and almost winning, we got to win the series. We put ourselves in a good spot – this is a top five team in the country, so they’ll be ready to play well tomorrow. We need to continue to play well to try to win the series.”
Arkansas (30-8, 11-5 SEC) grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first with an RBI-double from Peyton Stovall and a run-scoring single off the bat of Ben McLaughlin. Georgia freshman starter Kolten Smith, who was working on a pitch count, provided four innings and allowed a pair of runs on three hits with three strikeouts for the victory to move to 2-1 on the year. Junior Luke Wagner followed and contributed three innings and allowed just one run on four hits with two strikeouts.
The Bulldogs (21-17, 5-11 SEC) answered back with five runs in the third. Graduate Ben Anderson sent a leadoff single to right field, and redshirt freshman Charlie Condon extended his on base streak to 37 games with a single. Junior Parks Harber came into the box and singled to center field to score Anderson. With Condon on third, junior Sebastian Murillo drew a walk and a passed ball from Arkansas allowed Condon to score. With two runners on, junior Fernando Gonzalez stepped to the plate and cranked his third home run of the season giving Georgia the advantage that would hold up the remainder of the contest.
“It changed the game, ultimately,” Gonzalez said. “When you’re playing a team like that, or any team in the SEC, you want the big plays. You want the momentum back into your dugout. It’s going to make a difference at the end of the game.”
The Razorbacks cut Georgia’s lead to three with a sacrifice fly by Caleb Cali to score Kendall Diggs in the sixth. Arkansas added another run in the eighth with an RBI-single to trim the score to 6-4. The drama came in the eighth as the Razorbacks loaded the bases off freshman right hander Leighton Finley, and he came back with three consecutive strikeouts to maintain the lead.
Arkansas pulled to within one in the ninth, before graduate right-hander Dalton Rhadans retired the side for his third save to give Georgia’s 6-5 win. Thursday’s victory marked Georgia’s second straight one-run victory of the week after edging Clemson 5-4 in a road contest on Tuesday. Arkansas’ starter Hunter Hollan took the loss after tossing five innings and allowing six runs off seven hits with five walks.
Game two of the series will be played on Friday with first pitch at 6:02 p.m. The game will be live on SEC Network+ and on the Georgia Bulldog Sports Network.
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