Jonathan Cannon, Corey Collins lead Georgia Baseball in 8-3 win over Lipscomb

After giving up a career-high number of runs in his last outing against Georgia Tech, Georgia pitcher Jonathan Cannon had a career-high 11 strikeouts to help the Bulldogs to an 8-3 win over Lipscomb in the series-opening game Friday afternoon.

“Jonathan is really reliable, besides a lot of pitching talent on the mound,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said after the game. “It’s 95, 96 miles per hour, he can throw four pitches for strikes, he’s really athletic, he does all the things you need to do to be very successful on the mound. But he said it, this wasn’t his best stuff,” Stricklin said. “He hung a couple of breaking balls early and the slider wasn’t as sharp early on. Then I thought he really settled in and gave us a great start. That’s what you need on Friday. You need to get six, seven innings and he gave it to us. I thought he was really good today when he didn’t have his absolute best stuff, but I’ll tell you what, his okay stuff is awfully good.”

Cannon’s strong performance is just a continuation of what he’s done all season so far. He led the country with 14.1 scoreless innings up until last weekend. That included a 6.0-inning, two-hit showing on Opening Day against Albany and a career-best 8.1 innings versus Akron, staying perfect into the seventh. Cannon earned SEC Co-Pitcher of the Week honors for shutting down the Zips. However last week, Georgia Tech was able to get to him.

“My responsibility (as the Friday night starter) is to be able to set the tone for the rest of weekend. I wasn’t able to do that last weekend, and that’s my fault. I was able to come back today and get it done early, and my offense took care of the rest,” Cannon said.

“Last week was tough for me,” he continued. “I thought my stuff last week was significantly better than the stuff I had today. That’s just baseball. That’s just how it goes sometimes. I was able to look back and learn from the couple of mistakes I made and correct them today, so I think I’m in a good spot moving forward.”

Cannon’s only allowed run today came in the first inning as the Bisons got on the board with a two-out RBI double to right field. That Lipscomb lead didn’t last long though with Corey Collins tying things up with his own two-out hit, a solo-shot home run over the trees in right center. Collins’ home run was one of two that he hit in the win as the 2021 SEC All-Freshman Team member continues to come into form.

“(Corey) is seeing the ball really good,” Stricklin said. “It’s tough to be in that spot, the guy that’s circled in the three hole, to see 2-0 breaking balls and 3-1 changeups. The approach is getting better and better. When he’s really really pull happy, he gets in trouble. When he thinks about hitting the ball through the middle, ironically enough that’s when he ends up pulling those breaking balls. The balls that he hit to right field for home runs, he really stayed back on. Those are balls last year, maybe even earlier this season, he’s pulling into our dugout. But when he slows things down and thinks through the middle, he’s a dangerous hitter.”

Collins’ second home run came in the sixth to lead off that inning. In between Georgia scored four runs – two by Parks Harber and two that Fernando Gonzalez played a part in. Harber scored with the bases loaded in the second when Ben Anderson was hit by a pitch. Then in the fourth, it was Gonzalez’s turn to score with the bases loaded, this time as Cole Tate grounded into a double play. However, both Gonzalez and Harber played a part in the fifth when Gonzalez brought Harber home on a two-out single to left center. Cory Acton followed that up with another two-out hit through the left side to score Chaney Rogers to make it 5-1.

“When Fernando got that hit, it was almost like a relief. We have been pressing with guys in scoring position, and Fernando got the big hit. Cory I thought had a great at bat and a good approach. He hit the ball to the opposite field. They were playing him so much to pull, and can hit the ball the other way really well. I thought he did a really good job of shortening up and hitting it to where they weren’t playing him, hitting it away from the defense. That gave us a little bit of breathing room.”

After Cannon’s exit, Georgia turned the ball over to Collin Caldwell, who threw one inning. Things got a little bit crazy in the seventh as Lipscomb was able to score two on a throwing error by Acton. With runners on second and third, Acton tossed the ball over Rogers at first, allowing them to cross home. However, with the batter trying to advance to second, Rogers was able to gun him down and prevent any further damage. The Bulldogs then got two runs back, aided by Bison throwing errors themselves, to bring the score to 8-3. Will Pearson and Davis Rokose come in to help finish things out on the mound in the eighth and ninth.

Georgia and Lipscomb were originally set for a 2:00 p.m. game tomorrow at Foley Field. Due to incoming inclement weather, that has now been postponed to Sunday when the team teams will play at doubleheader starting at 1:00 p.m. ET.

The goal is always to sweep teams on the weekend when you win the first game, especially in the non-conference. Georgia’s won three of its last four and swept both Albany and Akron earlier this season, but Stricklin knows it will be a lot easier said than done on Sunday.

“We were disappointed with the way we played last weekend, really the last week in general, and we needed to get back on the winning track,” Stricklin said. “We’ve won three out of four now so we’re moving in the right direction. But yeah, you want to get some momentum going moving into the SEC. We’ve got two on Sunday, another on Tuesday and then the defending national champions come to town.”

“It’s exciting to think about next weekend, but we’ve got to take care of this weekend first,” he continued. “It’s really hard to sweep a doubleheader, I don’t care who you play. This is a good team, they’ve got some good arms, so we’re going to have to play a little bit better than we did today if we want to sweep on Sunday. Great teams find ways to win games even when they’re not playing really really good. That’s what we’re doing right now. I don’t think we’re playing great. I think we’re playing good, but we’re finding ways to win and that’s what’s important.”

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