Jackets use big day at plate to beat Xavier, take hard-fought series

Georgia Tech earned an 14-6 win on Sunday afternoon over Xavier to claim the series 2-1, but they had to break out the bats to do it against the once-again scrappy Musketeers.

The Jackets (39-8) built a big lead early and held off a substantial comeback effort by the visiting Musketeers in the middle innings to pull off the victory.

“Great way to finish off the series,” said Georgia Tech head coach James Ramsey. “It’s a really good Xavier team that really does a great job at the top, and those guys competed all weekend. I was really impressed with our guys’ response today to being challenged about not playing up to the standard. I think just up and down, guys competed better. I think ultimately for this team to accomplish what it wants to accomplish down the stretch, we’ve got to have efforts like today where there was nine guys in at any given time, and a guy in the mound that were all doing their part to just play up to our standards.”

Georgia Tech, which finished with 20 hits in the game spread among all nine batters in the lineup, dealt the first big blow of the game with a six-run first inning that included seven total hits from the Jackets’ lineup.

The Jackets went up by as many as eight at 10-2 after five innings, but Xavier (22-27) got itself back in the game with a four-run top of the sixth to cut the deficit to four. The following inning, the Musketeers threatened again with the bases loaded, but reliever Dylan Loy was able to get a groundout to third to strand the runners with no further damage.

In the following half inning, Drew Burress swung the momentum back in favor of the Jackets with a mammoth two-run homer to push the lead back to 12-6. From there, Tech added two more runs in the eighth to pull away for good as Justin Shadek came in to toss the final 1 1/3 innings scoreless on the mound.

Ramsey said that was a great thing to see when Burress connected on that homer after some tough-luck hard-hit outs over the past couple games.

“Yeah, he’s been as unlucky. He’s funny, he always tracks the wind, and he knows what direction it’s blowing, and he’ll send out a text in the morning based on things,” said Ramsey. “He hit a ball 118 (MPH) yesterday that doesn’t go out into the teeth of the wind…but he put a great swing on it (in the seventh). I think that’s the cool part is when guys like him, they’re staying within themselves. He’s using the whole field to go back side. That’s when we know he’s really going good”

Burress finished with a pair of hits, including his two-run homer, to go with a double, a walk and two runs scored. Ryan Zuckerman also had a big day with three hits, including a homer and a double, to go with two RBIs and two runs scored.

Five other Jackets had multi-hit efforts with Kent Schmidt going 4-for-5 with two runs scored, Carson Kerce having three hits, an RBI and three runs scored in the leadoff spot, Drew Rogers having two hits with a double and two RBIs and Parker Brosius and Jarren Advincula each contributing two hits and two RBIs.

Rounding out the offensive stats were Vahn Lackey with a hit, two walks and two RBIs and Will Baker with a hit and an RBI.

“I think our big challenge is, as good as our offense has been — it’s best in the country — we have not had weekends, probably in the last six weekends, that more than three of our guys have gone really well (at the same time), and so I feel like that’s a good thing,” said Ramsey. “I’m a big ‘regression to the norm,’ and the regression’s going to be five or six guys a weekend are going to go off from here on out, so that’ll be exciting to see.”

On the mound, Tech used six pitchers with Caden Gaudette (5-1) earning the win in relief. He went 2/3 of an inning and gave up no runs on no hits with two strikeouts. After that Loy, Kayden Campbell and Shadek pitched the final three innings. Loy went one full inning and gave up no runs on one hit with one strikeout and one walk, Campbell followed with 2/3 of an inning as he struck out one and didn’t allow a run or a hit and Shadek completed the task with the final 1 1/3 innings of shutout relief, not allowing a hit and striking out three.

Jackson Blakely got the Sunday start as normal on the weekend and had a solid outing in which he went four innings and gave up two runs on three hits with six strikeouts and no walks in a no decision. Dimitri Angelakos came on after him and pitched the next 1 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on three hits with one strikeout.

The Jackets’ staff struck out 14 total on the day to bring the total to 43 over the three-game series, the most by Georgia Tech in a three-game series this century.

“We threw the ball extremely well on weekend, a school record for this century, strikeouts in a series,” said Ramsey. “Those guys did a great job up and down.”

Xavier had a relatively strong offensive day of its own in the loss with seven total hits, including a 2-for-4, four-RBI effort from Tommy Townsend who launched a pair of two-run homers.

Clay Burdette added three hits, including a solo homer, and Luke Hammond had a hit and drove in the other run. Jonathan Fitz also doubled and scored a run.

Evan Vasiliou (1-2) took the loss for the Musketeers after starting and pitching three innings while allowing seven runs on nine hits with one strikeout and one walk. Two other pitchers were used after that, Jack DeTienne and Trevor Geddes, who combined to allow seven runs on 11 more hits.

Despite Xavier losing two of the three games in the series, Ramsey said he came away impressed with them as a team as overall it was a good late-season, non-conference test for the Jackets.

“We’ve always scheduled difficult,” said Ramsey. “I think that’s the one thing that you can sit here and stack up wins, and I think our RPI is sitting at No. 2 in the country and pretty firmly at the top because the conference schedule was really tough for us this year. That whole thing gets flipped on you one way or the other. You don’t play good enough people or you don’t win enough games. I can’t really figure it out. But we play really good non-conference teams, too, between the SEC teams. We’re playing the midweek, all the in-state teams. So when we scheduled Xavier, I knew kind of the group we have here. I think it was the perfect group that needs to continue to be challenged. That was a great looking back now that you win this series. You go, ‘man, it’s a great reminder we’re not invincible. And in a 4-1 game (in the regional), there’ll be a team that’s scrappy like that. And so I think it was a good little dress rehearsal for us.”

Scoring Recap…

Georgia Tech jumped out ahead early in the bottom of the first with a huge inning that brought 10 Jackets to the batters box and six to the plate as they took a 6-0 lead. Scoring plays in the frame came on an RBI single by Jarren Advincula, RBI single by Vahn Lackey, sac fly by Ryan Zuckerman, RBI single by Parker Brosius and two-run double by Drew Rogers.

Tech added another in the third to make it 7-0 on an opposite-field, solo homer by Zuckerman for his team-leading 18th long ball of the season.

Xavier got on the scoreboard in the fourth thanks to a two-out, two-run homer by Tommy Townsend to cut the deficit to 7-2.

Lackey came up with a sac fly in the bottom of the fourth to put Tech back up 8-2. The Jackets then scored two in the fifth to push the advantage to 10-2 with RBI singles from Carson Kerce and Advincula.

Xavier got back in the game with a four-run sixth inning to cut the deficit to 10-6 that included a solo homer by Clay Burdette, an RBI-groundout by Luke Hammond and another two-run homer by Townsend to center.

Georgia Tech got some momentum back in the in the bottom of the seventh thanks to a two-run homer by Drew Burress launched over the right-center field wall to put the lead back at six at 12-6.

The Jackets added two more insurance runs in the eighth to push the advantage to 14-6 thanks to RBI singles by Will Baker and Parker Brosius.

Up Next…

The Jackets will have a few days off with no midweek game due to finals for the student-athletes, but they will return to their home field and to ACC play on Friday when they host Duke at 7 p.m. for the first of three this coming weekend.

“It’s fun, man. We’re looking forward to next weekend, conference weekend,” said Ramsey. “Really excited about the crowds that we’re going to get for that. It’s graduation weekend, and my big challenge would be that everybody wants a regional here, and we’d really love it to be a regional atmosphere. I think that’s what we’re going to do. I think that’s something that our fan base wants, and so I think it’d be nothing better than to see people packed in here next weekend. So I hope that that’s definitely the case for all three against Duke.”