Georgia grabs win over top-5 team for second straight weekend

Georgia Baseball picked up a series-opening win over a top-five team for the second straight week on Thursday. The Bulldogs took down No. 5 Arkansas 6-5 at Foley Field with some clutch pitching from Leighton Finley and Dalton Rhadans, plus a big hit from catcher Fernando Gonzalez.

Trailing 2-0 after the first inning, Georgia responded in a big way in the third. Parks Harber singled to center with runners on the corners to bring home Ben Anderson. Then, Charlie Condon crossed the plate on a passed ball to tie things up, and on the very next pitch, Fernando Gonzalez sent it flying into the parking lot of left field to put Georgia up three.

Parks Harber picked up another RBI in the fourth with single, once again scoring Ben Anderson. That made it 6-2 in favor of the Bulldogs. Then, it was time to rely on the pitching.

Kolten Smith started on the mound for the Bulldogs and went 4.0 innings. He turned the ball over to Luke Wagner who got Georgia through the seventh. Together, they combined to allow seven hits but limited the scoring to just three runs, none between the first and sixth.

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Collin Caldwell entered in the eighth and couldn’t get an out, throwing just seven pitches while giving up a run. However, Leighton Finley came out of the bullpen to save the day and after loading the bases with a hit batter, he struck out three straight to get out of the inning. Then, after allowing an Arkansas single and a double, scoring one to bring the Razorbacks within one, and hitting another batter, Dalton Rhadans entered to close things out with a one-pitch fly out and a pop out on the third pitch of the at bat for the game’s final out.

It’s just the second one-run win for Georgia this season with the first coming on Tuesday over Clemson. Despite their struggles however, the Bulldogs have four wins over top-10 opponents with two over the current top-five. It’s the eighth time in 20 seasons that Georgia has won two over the top five.

Having won five of their last eight, all against Power Five opponents, Georgia has overcome a multi-run deficit to avoid defeat in three of the last five games. The Bulldogs currently have a 21-17 overall record and 5-11 mark in the SEC.

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“We are fighting,” Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin said after the game. “There is no quit in this team. They know where we are. We talked about the conversation we are in right now is a conversation we don’t like, and we need to change that conversation. We change it by the way that we play. We are playing better. We are trending in the right way, but now we have to win the series. It’s not about playing well and almost winning, we got to win the series. We put ourselves in a good spot – this is a top five team in the country, so they’ll be ready to play well tomorrow. We need to continue to play well to try to win the series.” 

“It’s a big series. It’s been up and down for us, but we play together, we enjoy it, we have fun around each other and it showed tonight. Last weekend as well. I think we’re playing better, and we’ve got to keep it going,” Fernando Gonzalez added, speaking with SEC Network after the game. “It’s baseball. It’s going to happen. We’ve had a good year the past two years, and this year has been up and down as a team. We’ve come together. We do it for each other, and that makes it a lot easier.”

Georgia and Arkansas have two more to go in the series. First pitch on Friday night is set for 6:00 p.m. ET and Saturday’s at 2:00 p.m. ET. Both games can be seen on SEC Network+.

Saturday will also serve as the third annual Foley Fest, a free event open to the public held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the parking lot adjacent to the Butts-Mehre Building and Rutherford Street. Fans can enjoy live music from Will Slater, food from vendors including Chick-fil-A, Bruster’s Ice Cream and Papa John’s Pizza and activities such as yards games, face painting, a balloon artist and a photo opportunity with the 2022 football National Championship trophy.