Georgia opens elimination game vs. NC State with monster two-run home run by Slate Alford

Georgia wasted little time jumping out to an early lead in an elimination game against NC State in the Athens Super Regional, bringing the home crowd to its feet with a bomb in the top of the first inning.

NC State opted to pitch to slugger Charlie Condon with nobody on base and one out, and Condon got aboard with a single to left field.

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Second baseman Slate Alford then stepped to the plate with a runner on first and one out. He took a ball to start the at-bat, then got a fat pitch that he took hold of and belted out of the park to left center field, putting Georgia up 2-0.

Check it out below.

DAWGS HOMER 💥🐶#RoadToOmaha x 🎥 ESPN2 / @BaseballUGA pic.twitter.com/BnVCZUyMhu

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Georgia is facing elimination after dropping the first game of the Athens Super Regional on Saturday afternoon. And it wasn’t just a loss in the opener, it was a drubbing. NC State won 18-1.

The Bulldogs, though, were convinced they weren’t out of it yet and coach Wes Johnson offered some hope for his team heading into Sunday’s game.

Wes Johnson wants players to tweak approach

The one thing Johnson pointed to after the lopsided loss for Georgia was that players were trying to do too much after giving up the lead in the game. That led to some pressing.

“It’s good to see that your guys have got some fight,” Johnson said. “We only scored one run because of a couple of guys, I thought they were trying to hit 10-run homers up there but that just means they care. That just means that they’re trying to get us back into the game and so we got outside of our approach a little bit, especially there after that second inning, but we’ll respond, we’ll be ready to go.”

Offensively, the Bulldogs finished with four hits and a run during the contest. On the other side of the plate, Georgia’s defense allowed 20 hits. Most of that production came during the 11-run second inning as NC State wouldn’t score more than two runs in any other inning.

“It happens,” Johnson continued. “Look, we’ve had four or five of these games this year. But I think the resilience we’ve shown in that next game is what you build off of and I think, as I told our guys, you just need to flush it.”

To Johnson’s point, Georgia has been able to bounce back after big losses. In fact, after the Bulldogs were eliminated from the SEC Tournament with a 9-1 loss to LSU, Georgia swept its competition in the Athens Regional.

Similarly, the Bulldogs were run-ruled by Texas A&M 19-9 in seven innings in late April. Georgia would not only go on to defeat the Aggies 5-4 in the series finale the next time out, but they rattled off nine-straight wins after the big loss including sweeps on Vanderbilt and South Carolina.

A similar effort will be needed to extend the Bulldogs’ season for one more game, and the Bulldogs were off to a good start on Sunday.

On3’s Barkley Traux also contributed to this report.