Jackets score late, get shutdown work from pen to complete sweep

It wasn’t quite the dramatic 10-run comeback win of the likes of Saturday, but Georgia Tech once again came from behind to defeat Wake Forest 6-5 on Sunday and complete the three-game sweep of the ACC series at Mac Nease Baseball Park at Russ Chandler Stadium.

The Jackets (36-7, 19-5 in ACC) trailed visiting Wake Forest 5-4 after five innings before scoring a run to even the game in the sixth and getting a bases-loaded walk drawn by Vahn Lackey to push the go-ahead and eventual game-winning run across home plate in the bottom of the eighth.

Along with those two big runs from the offense, the bullpen was very much instrumental in the victory for the second straight day as it was Dylan Loy and Caden Gaudette combining to pitch four shutout innings to close out the game, the win and the sweep for head coach James Ramsey’s ACC-leading squad.

“Anytime you sweep in our league, our guys deserve a lot of credit for competing for three straight days. The margin is so small in our league,” Ramsey said after Sunday’s victory. “Wake Forest has got a great team. They’re very capable. “I want to shout out our SID Anthony Brandt. He’s always got the tidbits of the day. And it was three straight home ACC sweeps…first time since 97. Listen, we’ve been to Omaha twice during that stretch. We’ve had a lot of big leaguers. We’ve had a lot of championship-type level teams. This team continues to kind of pave their path here and do things that haven’t been done in a while.

“So that’s exciting because you’re just talking about it comes down to the players competing and digging deep when maybe it’s not easy,” added Ramsey. “Maybe they’re tired. Everything that you can make an excuse for in these long ACC 30 games, every team could sit there and say ‘would-a, could-a, should-a, right?’ And so I think you go to last year, you win a championship because you played 30 games hard. This year we feel like we’re in a really good position through 24 games. So our players up and down, man, just coaching staff’s working really hard, support staff’s working hard. But it’s a fun time to be a Jacket.”

Loy (3-1) earned the win thanks to three shutout innings out of the bullpen after coming on in the sixth and allowing just two hits, striking out three and walking one. Gaudette then followed with a scoreless, hitless ninth to earn his first save of the season and his career.

“Pitching coach (Matt) Taylor obviously called a great game at the end there,” said Ramsey. “It’s fun…fun when you can call a game with guys that will trust whatever you put down. And if they shake, they shake with conviction. So I think that’s the fun part for us, man. It gets really tough to score late, and especially when you’re sitting and looking at our offense each time, you’re not able to score, and we’ve got a chance to put runs on the board.”

Those two followed starter Jackson Blakely who went four innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on four hits with two strikeouts and two walks for a no decision and Brett Barfield who pitched one inning of relief and allowed one run on one hit with one strikeout and one walk.

Georgia Tech’s bats had some issues with strikeouts in Sunday’s win, going down swinging or looking 14 times, but they were able to come through with clutch hits and at-bats when needed. Lackey went 0-for-4 on the day but had the biggest at-bat of the afternoon, drawing that two-out, bases-loaded walk in the eighth to put Tech ahead for good.

Drew Burress led the charge for the Jackets’ offense with a pair of hits, including a two-run homer, as well as a walk. Will Baker also had a two-run homer in the win.

Carson Kerce finished with a hit and an RBI with it coming in the sixth to even the game up at 5-5. Kent Schmidt added a pair of hits and a run scored while Ryan Zuckerman rounded out the offensive contributions with a hit and a run scored.

Wake Forest (28-17, 11-13 in ACC) saw a lead evaporate once again in the series finale just as it did in the first two games in Atlanta. Ryan Bosch (0-1) took the loss on the mound for the Demon Deacons as he pitched 2/3 of an inning in relief and gave up one run on one hit with one strikeout and two walks.

Wake Forest starter Cam Bagwell got a no decision despite a solid outing in which he went 5 2/3 innings and allowed five runs on five hits with 10 strikeouts and three walks. Two other relievers, Will Ray and Zach Johnston, had scoreless outings with Ray going 1 1/3 innings and allowing no runs on two hits with two strikeouts and one walk and Johnston pitching 1/3 of an inning, not allowing a hit, striking out one and walking one.

Offensively, the Demon Deacons were led by a trio of long balls by Luke Costello, Kade Lewis and Boston Torres, all of which were solo homers. Lewis, who homered for the third straight game, finished with two RBIs in the game while Costello and JD Stein each had multi-hit days for the Deacons. Stein had a double among his knocks.

Javar Williams added an RBI and a run scored for Wake Forest as well.

Scoring Recap…

For the third straight game in the series, Wake Forest got on the scoreboard in the top of the first to take a 1-0 lead. Kade Lewis drove in the run on a groundout to third.

Georgia Tech answered right back in the bottom of the first just two batters in as Drew Burress rocketed a two-run homer to left-center to push the Jackets ahead 2-1.

Lewis continued his big series for the Demon Deacons in the third with a solo homer to tie the game at 2-2. He homered in all three games in the series.

Georgia Tech jumped back on top in the bottom of the third on a two-out, two-run homer by Will Baker to make it 4-2 in favor of the home team.

Wake Forest continue the back and forth momentum with two in the top of the fourth to even the game back up at 4-4. Boston Torres connected for an opposite-field, solo homer and Javar Williams followed several batters later with a sac fly to center.

The Deacons took the lead in the fifth on yet another homer, this one a solo shot to right by Luke Costello, to go up 5-4.

Georgia Tech got a clutch two-out, RBI-single by Carson Kerce in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game at 5-5.

The Jackets scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth by way of bases-loaded walk drawn by Vahn Lackey to make it 6-5.

“I think that was one thing we talked about and proud of is, hey, like we talk about with those runners in scoring position, the pitcher is the guy that the pressure’s on,” said Ramsey. “He’s the one that’s in trouble so to speak. And when you’re talking about Vahn Lackey walking to the plate, I can’t relate to that. Didn’t pitch, but I know if a player of his stature and the Burress’s of the world, they come up there, you have a choice in your head of just sit there and let one of the two voices talking to you about facing a guy of that caliber. I think once you fall back 2-0, there’s that little piece of you saying, ‘man, this guy can do damage. He can do damage on hard. He can do damage on soft. And so to draw a walk there was absolutely massive.”

Up Next…

Georgia Tech will take a short trip up I-75 North for a midweek matchup on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Kennesaw State.

The Jackets will then host a late-season, non-conference series this coming weekend as they welcome Xavier to The Flats. Game 1 will be Friday at 7 p.m. at Mac Nease Baseball Park at Russ Chandler Stadium.

Ramsey said the lead his team has built atop the ACC by winning 7-of-8 conference series so far is exactly the spot they were aiming to hold at this point of the season.

“Yeah, that’s where we always want to be,” said Ramsey. “I think we want to set the stage of having really good players and playing really good baseball. We want to mesh those two things together because you can have talent and you can be well-coached. And I think the kind of combination of those has kind of put us in a position to win right now. You go, seven out of eight series wins. I don’t know how many other people have done that in the league. But I think you set yourself in that upper-echelon now coming down the stretch where I told the guys, ‘somebody’s going to win next weekend, somebody’s going to lose next weekend when they’re all playing in conference.’ So for us I think there’s some things we’ll do during the week. You got Kennesaw (State), Xavier. It’ll be a good opportunity again.”