Baseball loses four of six to ACC foes

The Jackets recently concluded an 11-game road trip, facing off against four of their collegiate rivals, UGA, Clemson, South Florida and North Carolina. The Jackets were 5-6 on the trip.

The Jackets began the road trip by playing against state rival UGA at Turner Field. Matt Wieters went 3-5 with two RBIs. Jeff Ussery became the 15th player in school history to hit two triples in a game.

However, the Bulldogs managed to gain 15 hits, seven of those for extra bases. The Jackets lost to their in-state rival by a score of 10-7.

In their next action, the Jackets won just one of three games against Clemson. The teams played neck-to-neck in the series opener, but Clemson's Doug Hogan hit a walk-off homer against Wieters in the 11th to win the game for the Tigers.

Senior Ryan Turner pitched 5.2 strong innings against the Tigers in the final game for the win. Turner earned three strike-outs and gave up just two runs. The Jackets took strong advantage of the opposing team's pitching mistakes, summed up by ten walks and two hit-by-pitches. Junior Brad Rulon closed the game and earned the save in the Jackets' 6-3 win over the Tigers. The Jackets continued on to South Florida, winning all three matches and launching a four-game winning streak.

The Jackets played the final game of the season series with UGA in Athens. The two teams battled for the lead throughout the game, with UGA prevailing in the end.

"We played okay, but definitely not as well as we hoped for. Unfortunately, they [had] some timely hitting and good pitching down the stretch and we couldn't put the ball together and it shows on the scoreboard," Payne said.

Matt Wieters hit a hard sacrifice fly to allow Jason Garofalo to score the fourth and final run for the Jackets in the fifth. After the seventh-inning stretch, the Jackets' pitching staff struggled by allowing a runner to advance on a wild pitch but also earning two strike-outs.

"We were battling all game, and then I think we lost it during the ninth inning.... It just happens to be who scored last, and [UGA] just happened to do that tonight," Wieters said.

The Jackets couldn't manage to effectively shut down UGA in the eighth, committing a hit batsman, a walk to load the bases and giving up RBI hits.

"We lost [and] you can't really feel too good when you lose. [UGA] just played better than us tonight.... We just have to forget about this game and focus on our ultimate goal, which is to go to Oklahoma [to play in the College World Series]," Wieters said.

The Jackets won just one of their games against UNC. In the second game, Crancer went 3-4 with a homerun and Chris Hicks pitched five strong innings in relief to earn the win. In the third game, the Jackets scored seven runs in the second, and North Carolina answered back with five of its own. Between the two teams, there were a total of 35 hits; eight of those were home runs. The Jackets lost the battle in an 14-11 loss.

The Jackets play their last home series and regular season finaleagainst FSU this weekend.