Jackets beat rival Georgia
By Jason Ossey/ Student Publications
Tech beat instate-rival Georgia 8-2 on Wednesday night in the first of three regular season games against the Bulldogs.
In the 339th meeting between bitter rivals, Tech came out on top over Georgia 8-2 on the diamond on Wednesday night.
Senior Ryan Turner made the start for the Jackets to lead a staff pitching evening and threw two scoreless innings while inducing two ground ball double plays. Turner was scheduled to pitch last Sunday against Virginia but the game was rained out.
Turner was named as one of 30 candidates for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award, which honors a senior baseball player that excels both on and off the baseball field and has chosen to remain in school for his senior season, earlier in the week.
Tech started off the scoring in the third inning when freshman Jeff Ussery led off with a walk, moved to second on a Danny Payne single and scored on an RBI single from Michael Fisher.
Matt Wieters followed with a sacrifice fly, scoring Payne from third and giving Tech a 2-0 lead after three innings.
Fisher extended his team and season-high hitting streak to 15 games with the base hit.
Tech added four more runs in the fourth inning, three of which scored on two Georgia fielding errors.
Freshman Andrew Robinson pitched the third, fourth and fifth innings and allowed no runs on one hit while walking one and striking out two to pick up his first career win.
Luke Murton added his sixth homerun on the season to give Tech a 7-2 lead to begin the seventh inning and Patrick Long singled home Tony Plagman to make the score 8-2.
The Jackets used six pitchers who combined to give up just six hits.
Michael Hutts, Jared Hyatt, Elliot Ogawa and Chris Hicks combined to pitch the final four innings and allowed two runs on three hits.
Tech returns to the diamond tonight as they open up a three game series against North Carolina State at Russ Chandler Stadium at 7 p.m.
The series continues on Saturday at 7 p.m. and concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m. Tech and Georgia will play again on Tuesday at 7 p.m. from Turner Field in the annual Spring Baseball Classic. All proceeds from the game will benefit Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
