No. 4 Georgia baseball fell in the series opener to Florida on Friday evening. Backed behind immaculate pitching, the Gators took advantage of the Bulldogs\u2019 bullpen late in the 8-2 loss.<\/p>\n
Georgia entered Friday\u2019s nightcap on the heels of an eight game winning streak, including an impressive series road sweep against Mississippi State last week. With the best record in the SEC and the top-ranked offense in all of college baseball, the Bulldogs looked to continue their success against one of the school\u2019s oldest rivalries.<\/p>\n
Junior Joey Volchko got the nod to start the series opener, making his fourth consecutive conference start dating back to early March. But despite earning the win in his last three outings, Volchko got off to a rocky start in the first frame. The unranked Gators took advantage of a pair of hit-by-pitches and an error to score their first run of the contest. Despite Volchko\u2019s shaky first inning, the junior turned things around, throwing six innings of one-run baseball. He struck out seven.<\/p>\n
After the first frame, the game quickly grew into a pitchers\u2019 duel between the two teams. Florida starter Aidan King shut down the Georgia offense, not allowing a hit until the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought King was really good,\u201d Georgia head coach Wes Johnson said. \u201cHe established both sides of the plate with his fastball. We got to do a lot better job offensively though. I mean, we took way too many pitches. You got to be ready when you get in the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida broke the game wide open in the seventh inning as Georgia went to its bullpen. Just as Volchko exited and redshirt sophomore Paul Farley took over, Florida loaded the bases for Karson Bowen, who singled to right field and extended the Gators\u2019 lead by two. Senior Blake Cyr followed with a double into the left field gap, which cleared the bases and scored three more. Still, with a runner on second base and two outs, junior Landon Stripling mashed a two-run homer over the center field wall, concluding the Gators seven-run seventh inning.<\/p>\n
Nearing the game’s conclusion, Georgia showed signs of life in the bottom of the eighth inning. As King flirted with a complete game shutout, senior Ryan Black smacked a triple to left field, scoring both Henry Allen and Kenny Ishikawa to give Georgia its first tallies of the game. The hit would send Florida to its bullpen, which allowed no further hits to the hosts. Georgia finished the contest with a season-low two runs across three hits.<\/p>\n
Georgia returns to Foley Field on Saturday, as the Bulldogs are set to face Florida in Game 2 of the series at noon. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 4 Georgia baseball fell in the series opener to Florida on Friday evening. Backed behind immaculate pitching,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[78376,39081,3816,102411,102419,102420,102423,102406,102428,102412,102429,102418,102417,28,2530,30,29,102426,102402,102421,102425,89214,102424,9004,102403,102405,102407,102404,102408,102415,102413,76824,102427,57526,102410,102416,10922,110,102422,102414,96280,57528,102409,102430,78290],"class_list":{"0":"post-227422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-positions","17":"tag-baseball-teams","18":"tag-bullpen","19":"tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","20":"tag-complete-game","21":"tag-florida","22":"tag-florida-gators","23":"tag-florida-headlines","24":"tag-florida-news","25":"tag-georgia-u-s-state","26":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","27":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","28":"tag-hit-baseball","29":"tag-home-run","30":"tag-lawn-games","31":"tag-major-league-baseball","32":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","33":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","34":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","35":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","36":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","37":"tag-mississippi-state-bulldogs-football","38":"tag-outdoor-sports","39":"tag-pitcher","40":"tag-run-baseball","41":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","42":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","43":"tag-shutout-baseball","44":"tag-southeastern-conference","45":"tag-sports","46":"tag-sports-events","47":"tag-starting-pitcher","48":"tag-strikeout","49":"tag-team-sports","50":"tag-turf-sports","51":"tag-wes-johnson-baseball","52":"tag-world-series"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}