Still Alive: Pitching Stellar Again As Dawgs Blank Texas

Thanks to what’s become a tried and true formula, the Diamond Dawgs are still alive in the College World Series.

For the third time in as many games in Omaha, Georgia received strong starting pitching. The end result? A gritty 2-0 win in Tuesday’s night’s elimination game against Texas to move on to the bracket final against Oklahoma, where the Dawgs need to beat the Sooners twice in order to advance to the best-of-three championship series.

For the first time in this College World Series, Georgia had to look to its bullpen. That dip into the depth of the pitching staff stood tall, as well. After Dylan Vigue’s four innings of work in which he gave up two Longhorn hits and struck out eight, Justin Byrd entered. To say that there was no dropoff would be an understatement, as he allowed just two hits, fanning four UT batters.

And with a low-scoring game, an anomaly in this era of big offensive numbers, there was little margin for error. Byrd delivered, getting out of a two-aboard jam in the eighth before setting the side down in the ninth to clinch the win.

Offense has not come easy for Georgia the past two games in Omaha, and Tuesday night continued that. Part of that at Charles Schwab Field had to do with Texas starter Luke Harrison, who Georgia’s skipper rightly compared on the TV broadcast to Sandy Koufax. Through the first three innings, Georgia hitters struck out eight times. But the Diamond Dawgs finally broke through in the fifth, when Tre Phelps broke out of his Omaha doldrums to double in Brennan Hudson, who drew a leadoff walk. Georgia would later add a shred of insurance off of Texas reliever Sam Cozart, who had been unflappable all year long. He was at first on Tuesday, entering the game with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth, striking out Kolby Branch. But Georgia would break through an inning later, getting a single run as Ryan Black barely beat the tag at the plate from a Rylan Lujo sacrifice fly. That score was inexplicably challenged twice, both from the play at the plate and to also review whether or not Black left third early. Both were upheld, as the gutsy call to send the runner home paid largely with an extra run.

Its bullpen mostly untouched, Georgia now has to win twice against Oklahoma. It’s a definite upside that key reliever Matt Scott is yet to be used, and Saturday’s starter Joey Volchko also stands to be a likely option in the next two games, where the goal is to go 2-0.

Go Dawgs!