{"id":336602,"date":"2026-06-15T02:50:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/336602\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T02:50:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:50:54","slug":"everything-wes-johnson-said-after-georgia-baseball-beat-texas-to-open-college-world-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/336602\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Wes Johnson said after Georgia baseball beat Texas to open College World Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like it has all season long, Georgia handled its business on college baseball\u2019s grandest stage Saturday night, defeating Texas 7-1 <\/a>and moving on to the winner\u2019s bracket to face Oklahoma<\/a> Monday at 7 p.m. on ESPN.<\/p>\n

Starting pitcher Joey Volchko <\/a>was the story in this one. Georgia\u2019s ace put on a performance for the ages on Saturday – tossing his first-career complete game, allowing four hits, one run (not earned), one walk and a career-high 15 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

Georgia took advantage of Texas\u2019 multiple mistakes, including three errors and six free passes. Of the seven runs scored, only two were earned – all charged to Longhorns starter Dylan Volantis.<\/p>\n

The offensive star was Rylan Lujo, who went 2-for-5 with a two-run homer, a double and three total RBIs.<\/p>\n

Postgame, UGA coach Wes Johnson met with the media to discuss the win; here\u2019s everything he said.<\/p>\n

Opening statement…<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Joey [Volchko] came out and really set the tone of the game. Struck out the side in the first\u00a0attacking\u00a0in the strike zone. Doing what he\u2019s done a lot this year and being able to spin his breaking ball and his curveball was really working. I thought it was good, Tre [Phelps] had a good at-bat to start the game. I thought Daniel [Jackson] got off a really good swing there in the first two. Kind of lines out to right. Maybe earlier in the day that one might have gone. But then obviously Lujo [Rylan Lujo]\u00a0 comes up and just turns on one, runs it down the line. Kind of gets us off to that start and gets a couple on the board. They had a couple of miscues obviously there in the first. So when you get out like that and then your guy\u2019s throwing the ball the way Joey did, it just kind of gives your offense a little time to figure out… Their guy was really good, I think he threw 41 or 42 pitches in the first. And then for him to be able to go as long as he did, he made some adjustments and was able to keep us down. And then obviously there, Lujo gets another big hit. Kenny [Ishikawa] gets a big hit and really kind of stretches us out. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I mean, obviously the story tonight was Joey.\u00a0 I mean, commanding pitches, just, I mean, hitting spots. If we called it, low and away, he hit it. If we called the slider strike\u00a0to ball, he did it. One of the most\u00a0impressive performance, complete game performances I\u2019ve been a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what was different with Volchko on Saturday compared to previous starts:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to sound crazy. I think we saw it last week. He had the one hiccup where State scored seven, but then he was able to continue to grind. He bookended a couple of zeros on both sides of that. <\/p>\n

And obviously Mississippi State is extremely talented. And not that Texas is extremely talented as well but we\u2019ve kind of seen it coming. I thought it was regional, you know, we ran into a rain delay. He actually had a no-hitter through the five or six innings that we had there. So we\u2019ve been seeing it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like sometimes you want things to happen really fast in this game, and unfortunately there\u2019s just so many different emotions you\u2019ve got to learn to — I wouldn\u2019t say deal with, but learn how to control. And I think that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing now. Joey — and I\u2019ve said it all year to a lot of different people — his better days are ahead. He\u2019s got better days ahead of him than what he did tonight. And you\u2019re just seeing the work really come to fruition right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

On keeping Volchko in the game:<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you never know. Obviously you\u2019re trying to keep your hand on the pulse of everything going on. His pitch count was low. He was throwing strikes. Obviously his first walk wasn\u2019t until the ninth. All those factors come in. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he — at that point they had four hits. You just felt like the count was right. I mean, we had a number on him. We had a couple of guys down there moving. I wasn\u2019t going to let him just go, go. He knew where he was. He knew the count. He knew how big it was for him to finish that game.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the importance for Volchko and Georgia to have a game like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it just shows — a young man who bet on Georgia and came and worked really hard and has been through a couple things. It\u2019s hard to come into the Southeastern Conference at times. Not so much from a stuff standpoint, but you look at our road schedule this year. All the environments we played in. We played at all the tough environments, minus maybe one or two. <\/p>\n

Getting out there, seeing how to handle that. So you look tonight, I don\u2019t know, the crowd was pretty big. I don\u2019t know, 25-ish-thousand people. And he looked really calm out there. So I think it\u2019s just what you see when a guy goes through that process.”<\/p>\n

On the mentality of other players other than Daniel Jackson and Tre Phelps stepping up at the plate: <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, guys, this game is hard. And it\u2019s slow. And it\u2019s long. And so we don\u2019t panic. We really pride ourselves on that. We want the game to be slow. We know it\u2019s hard to get a team out 27 times. So we understand that. <\/p>\n

And we understand that it\u2019s baseball. You can go 0-for-4 and have a really good night, or 0-for-3 and hit the ball hard. I thought Daniel had three really good at-bats prior to his last one there. <\/p>\n

So it\u2019s like he\u2019s moving the baseball the way he should, and sometimes it just doesn\u2019t translate into hits. He\u2019ll get jammed and run one over the shortstop\u2019s head and dump in a single, and we\u2019ll be talking about him 2-for-4 one night. We\u2019re more worried about the swings. <\/p>\n

And then I think the biggest thing in our game is you gotta be able to let at-bats go. You gotta understand that, the way you get into a slump is you start pressing after maybe an at-bat you didn\u2019t like the result of. And I think that\u2019s where our guys have grown a lot.”<\/p>\n

On Kenny Ishikawa\u2019s offensive approach:<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I\u2019ve talked a lot about Kenny this year. He got hit by a pitch early in the year and broke his foot and had to miss four, six weeks, whatever it was. <\/p>\n

Prior to that, I think you would have seen Kenny in double-digit home runs. Came back. It took him a little time to really get back to being comfortable. <\/p>\n

And I think all you\u2019re seeing right now is the Kenny Ishikawa we knew and we saw all fall and early spring before and he got injured. <\/p>\n

But no, he does, he brings a different \u2014 he can bunt, he can move the baseball. But he\u2019s hit a couple \u2014 his homers have been two of the furthest ones I\u2019ve seen from a left-hander this year.”<\/p>\n

On the impact of Volchko\u2019s first-pitch strikes thrown and what you were able to do with it:<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, I don\u2019t think you gotta be able to throw \u2014 you\u2019re in this ballpark. We\u2019re used to playing in some different-sized parks in our league. And this ballpark was playing big tonight. And it kind of does free you up a little bit to attack the strike zone a little more.<\/p>\n

And Joey, that was our game plan from earlier this week and his bullpens, to his touches yesterday. He throws a touch the day before. And I was like, Joey, strike one, we\u2019re going to act like you are seeing the first nine hitters. You got nine pitches a day. <\/p>\n

And he went \u2014 his touch yesterday \u2014 he went 7-for-9. So it was like, let\u2019s go. We shut it down. And so we\u2019ve really put an emphasis on it all week, and it was nice to see today.”<\/p>\n

On what you liking certain matchups against left-handed Volantis:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I mean Lu\u2019s [Rylan Lujo] been playing in 3. Yeah, it\u2019s kind of ironic, right? I mean, Kenny hits a ball to right. Daniel hits the ball to right. Both of those probably are homers at our park. And then the one that goes out would not have been a homer at our park, for the record. Kind of crazy. <\/p>\n

But no, Lu\u2019s been there. We really like him behind Jackson and Phelps because he can move the ball. Then with both of those guys\u2019 speed, it just kind allows you to do some different things on the base path. <\/p>\n

You can steal, if you need to steal. You can hit and run and even move the ball. I mean, you feel comfortable moving some guys with Lu back there because he\u2019s really, really tough to strike out.\u201d<\/p>\n

On if Volchko \u2018handled\u2019 Texas\u2019 lineup:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think [Anthony] Pack saw a straight ball all night.\u00a0Yeah, I mean, obviously, you think so. I mean, all three of those guys were really, really timing. You know, the year [Aiden] Robbins has had, I mean, come on, man, that young man, he\u2019s gonna play this game a long time if he wants to. Obviously, Carson [Tinney].\u00a0That\u2019s my first time to really see Pack, obviously. I mean, we didn\u2019t play them this year in the regular season. So yeah, you would see the kids always got the reels on going in the clubhouse.\u00a0So I\u2019ve seen some highlights. But before, obviously, this year is the first time we\u2019ve really\u00a0broke\u00a0him down. We looked at, obviously, Tinney and Robbins last year, and you just different things.\u00a0But so yeah, I mean, for the most part, I feel like he did a really good job handling them and executing his pitches.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On what you saw out of Volchko in the portal last year: <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, gosh. He said a quick one. So I\u2019ll try to make it quick. We saw a lot. A young man we thought we could \u2014 everybody always gets caught up on velocity sometimes. And sometimes guys just need to change and create a different deception and movement from a slot to create more ride or swing-and-miss.<\/p>\n

We just saw a guy we thought we could really help get back in the strike zone. You look at his strikeout-per-nine versus his time with us, versus careers, has jumped up pretty good. <\/p>\n

We just thought we could get him a few more swings-and-misses. Everybody knew he had a fastball. And we added the cutter and added the sweeper and brought back the curveball. And those pitches, really — now you can\u2019t just sit in there and hunt the heater away, which is kind of what he was doing. <\/p>\n

So we just thought we could really get him a good sweeper and get him a curveball and give him a chance to really, really make a run at the big leagues with it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like it has all season long, Georgia handled its business on college baseball\u2019s grandest stage Saturday night, defeating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120144,16616,119161,1771,120145,27,29,28,119971],"class_list":["post-336602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-baseballl","tag-georgia","tag-long-island","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-regional","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-uga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}