A near late-inning collapse made things interesting, but No. 7 Georgia’s early offensive outburst powered it to a 7-6 victory over top-ranked Arkansas on Saturday.
After the Razorbacks cut the Bulldogs’ lead in half in the eighth inning via a Kuhio Aloy two-run missile over the right field wall, Georgia head coach Wes Johnson elected to bring in Charlie Goldstein to finish the inning and pitch the ninth. The lefty hurler accomplished the first task, but got into trouble in the ninth, allowing the first two batters of the inning to reach base.
Johnson called Matthew Hoskins’ number to extinguish the fire, but he spiked a fastball on his third pitch, and Arkansas narrowed its deficit to just one run on the wild pitch. Hoskins settled in, retiring two batters in a row, and with the pressure of the tying run on third base and winning run on first, he blew a 3-2 heater past Ryder Helfrick to call game.
“Wes (Johnson) came out to the mound and Hoskins interrupted him, not in a disrespectful way, but Hoskins was so locked in that he wanted the ball, and he wanted to finish this game, and he did exactly that,” Ryland Zaborowski said. “He had great confidence within himself. It was a tricky at bat in the end there, but I knew he was gonna come out on top.”
The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning, thanks to a pair of RBI singles from Zaborowski and Nolan McCarthy. Arkansas’ Ryder Helfrick got the Razorbacks on the board with a solo shot in the second, but Robbie Burnett answered back with his 16th home run of the year, extending Georgia’s lead to 5-1.
The Razorbacks struck again in the third and sixth innings, but Georgia had a counterpunch ready each time, maintaining its four-run lead heading into the eighth inning.
“We’ve gotta punch,” Johnson said. “It’s a nine-round fight, and when you get punched, you’ve gotta punch back. I thought we did that really well, and I challenged them to go up and do that, and they responded.”
In just his second start this season, Kolten Smith illustrated why he was named a preseason All-American by Baseball America, striking out eight across five innings of work and allowing just two runs to the third-highest scoring offense in Division I. Smith had full command of his breaking pitches all game, picking up all eight of his punchouts via his curveball and slider.
The Bulldogs’ gritty win sets up a rubber match tomorrow at 1 p.m., with Leighton Finley expected to take the mound for Georgia.
