ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia baseball team used a dominating seven-run second inning to win the first of a three-game series, 18-9, against the Charleston Southern Buccaneers on Friday at Foley Field.
“We swung the bats really well,” Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach Scott Stricklin said. “When you put up 18 runs on the board, you are certainly happy with that. We wanted to finish things well. It doesn’t matter what the score is. When you have the opportunity to get an at-bat and get an appearance, it will count in the stats. When games get out of hand like that, it was 16-1 at one point, those are tough games to play in on both sides. When you are down 16-1, you have nothing to lose. When you are up 16-1, you take your foot off the pedal because that is the way it is. We scored 18 runs, swung the bats really well, and got off to a good start.”
Junior Jaden Woods (3-0) started for Georgia (11-3) and got the win, pitching 4.2 innings and allowing one run on three hits with eight strikeouts. Charleston Southern’s (5-9) Ryan Gleason (1-3) was credited the loss after tossing 3.0 innings and allowing 10 runs on 10 hits and five walks.
Georgia took the lead with seven runs in the second frame, highlighted by Sebastian Murillo’s bunt single with a throwing error that allowed a pair of runs to score. Redshirt freshman Charlie Condon extended his hit streak to 13 games and collected his team-leading 27th RBI in the frame.
The Buccaneers added one run to the board in the third. The Bulldogs returned to the plate in the bottom of the frame and extended their lead to nine runs. Graduate Connor Tate, whose hit streak spans 19 games, launched a three-run homer to left center to score graduates Mason LaPlante and Ben Anderson for a 10-1 lead.
A fourth-inning leadoff home run to center field by Murillo was followed up by a double from Tate to score LaPlante. Graduate Will David sent a line-drive single to center field to score sophomore Cole Wagner in the fifth. A wild pitch sent David to home plate for the second Bulldog run of the inning. David cranked his second homer of the season to center field in the sixth to extend Georgia’s lead, 16-1.
Five Buccaneer runs left Charleston Southern trailing by 10 runs, 16-6, after the eighth. A double to the left-center wall from David scored Wagner, who was waiting on second, racking in his fifth RBI of the game to tie his career high. An error by the Buccaneers’ first baseman allowed David to cross home.
“It has been pretty fun,” David said. “Sometimes you get caught up in the moment, and you don’t really take a step back and look at what this group can do. We have a bunch of really good baseball players on this team. It is still early, but I am really excited to see what this group of hitters can continue to do.”
Three Charleston Southern runs came in the top of the ninth as the Bulldogs got five pitchers work on the night.
The series concludes Saturday with a doubleheader. The first game of the day will start at 2 p.m., with the second scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
