Tech's bats come through again in 10-7 win vs. in-state foe Owls

Sometimes in midweek college baseball teams have to figure out how to win high-scoring slugfests. Thankfully for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, the offense is always up for the challenge.

The Jackets’ lineup put up another huge night on Tuesday and it was very much needed as Kennesaw State did some scoring of their own, but Tech had a little more firepower to earn a 10-7 midweek road victory.

Georgia Tech (37-7) cranked out 17 hits with nine of those coming from the trio of Carson Kerce, Drew Burress and Vahn Lackey as the offense put five on the board in the top of the first to set the tone for the game before adding three in the fourth and two in the sixth to hold off the Owls.

“You come on the road, especially in-state games…man, a lot of respect to Kennesaw (State),” said Georgia Tech head coach James Ramsey after the win. “Beautiful new stadium here, it’s good to come out here and play. I think getting out 5-0 was big for us. Anytime you’re on the road, you can score first…Big zero in the first inning (by our defense), never a doubt. (Carson) Ballard did a great job of just settling it with a double play. And then, for me, a couple of big swings. Burress had the big three-run homer. And then for (Justin) Shadek to come in and throw that way was really encouraging. It’s good for (Mason) Patel to get a little touch, a couple of pitches in. Then for us, we’re going to rest up, recove and get ready for another good weekend with Xavier (coming in).”

The strong pitching Ramsey mentioned came from Shadek who rebounded from a rough outing on Saturday vs. Wake Forest to have one of his best efforts of the season on Tuesday night. The flamethrower came in out of the bullpen and pitched three strong innings, giving up just one run on hit hit while striking out six.

Patel then came on for a rare midweek appearance in the ninth and got his sixth save of the season thanks to an inning of scoreless relief as he gave up one hit.

“Yeah, that’s more who Shadek is,” said Ramsey. “And I think he’ll have plenty more chances to touch it for us. I think that was the encouraging part is just mentality-wise, felt like he was really convicted of what he was doing out there. And those are big innings. I mean you stack up and you look up there in the ninth and having to throw Patel for a little bit, for him to be able to go in the ninth kept another couple of our guys out of having to throw today in the bullpen.”

Caden Spivey (1-0) got the win as he pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief and allowed two runs on two hits with one strikeout. He followed the duo of Carson Ballard and Jamie Vicens as Ballard got the start and pitched one inning while allowing no runs on one hit with one walk. Vicens then threw 1 2/3 frames and allowed our runs on two hits with three walks and one strikeout.

As mentioned above, the top of the lineup had another big game led by Burress, the reigning ACC Player of the Week, who was 3-for-6 with a three-run homer, a double and two runs scored. Lackey also had three hits, including two doubles, to go with two RBIs and two runs scored, and Kerce was 3-for-6 in the leadoff spot with his 23rd double of the season and scored two runs.

Will Baker was 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI, and Jarren Advincula continued his hot-hitting of the past week with two more hits, a stolen base and a run scored. Caleb Daniel added two hits and two RBIs, and Kent Schmidt had two hits and an RBI. Ryan Zuckerman also drove in a run.

Kennesaw State (19-22) used eight pitchers in the game with Jayden Summerville (0-3) taking the loss after his start in which he went just one inning and allowed five runs on six hits with one strikeout. Four Owls pitchers had scoreless outings, including Ty Bayer, Davis Harper, JT Gibson and Cole Royer.

Offensively for the home team, Charlie Jones had a pair of homers, a two-run and a solo shot, and Josh Gibbs also had a three-run homer. Trenton Lyons added a hit and an RBI, and James McGee and Chris Cole each had doubles.

After falling behind 5-0 in the first, Kennesaw State rallied within one at 5-4 in the third and got the deficit back to two at 8-6 in the fifth but could never get any closer.

Scoring recap…

Georgia Tech quickly grabbed the momentum in the top of the first with a five-run frame that included big hits from several in the middle of the lineup. Vahn Lackey started things with an infield RBI single, and that was followed by a Kent Schmidt RBI single to center. Rounding out the scoring in the inning was an RBI double from Will Baker, an RBI groundout by Ryan Zuckerman and an RBI single by Caleb Daniel as the Jackets led 5-0 before the host Owls even came to the plate.

Kennesaw State scored three in the bottom of the second to cut the deficit to 5-3 thanks to a three-run homer from Josh Gibbs.

The Owls pull another run closer in the bottom of the third on a sac fly from Trenton Lyons to make it 5-4.

Georgia Tech extended the lead back out to four in the fourth on a three-run homer by the reigning ACC Player of the Week, Drew Burress, to make it 8-4.

Kennesaw State answered in the bottom of the fifth with a two-run homer by Charlie Jones to cut Tech’s lead to 8-6.

Georgia Tech struck for two in the sixth to push the lead back out to 10-6 thanks to an RBI double by Lackey followed a few batters later by a bases-loaded walk drawn by Daniel.

Kennesaw State cut the deficit to 10-7 in the seventh on Jones’ second homer of the night, this one a solo shot to dead center.

Up Next…

Georgia Tech will continue it’s non-conference week of competition on Friday at 7 p.m. as the Jackets host Xavier for the first of three this weekend.

“I think this group will only get so many more chances to play together, period. We’ll only get so many chances to play together at home,” said Ramsey of the weekend series. “It’s going to be alumni weekend. We’re recognizing the 20 years since the College World Series appearance. We’re recognizing Jim Poole Day on Sunday. It’s a great opportunity. I mean, I think that’s something with school winding down, you know, give students something to do, come out and watch a baseball game and just keep this thing rolling. I mean Xavier’s a quality opponent, and that was on purpose. We didn’t want to sit there and take something off with all due respect to the off week. Xavier’s a really good team, and we did that on purpose, and it’ll be a battle for three games. I will play it straight up like we do in any game. It’s an ACC weekend, and I think that’s the thing is this group has done such a great job. You don’t have to tell them where and when. You just tell them what time first pitch is, and they’re going to show up ready to go.”