Liberty (42-20) lost to Georgia (48-12) in the winner’s bracket game, 6-2, on Saturday night. With the loss, the Flames fall into the loser’s bracket and will face Boston College for a second time this weekend on Sunday at noon.
The Bulldogs are the host of the Athens Regional and No. 3 national seed, and they flexed their muscles offensively like they have done throughout the season. Entering this weekend, Georgia led the nation in home runs with 149. They blasted nine long balls in their regional opening win against Long Island and added five more against Liberty on Saturday.
It started to begin the game as the Bulldogs leadoff batter reached base and then SEC Player of the Year Daniel Jackson blasted a shot over the fence to take the 2-0 lead off Liberty starter Bradley Zayac. The Flames would quickly respond though. Tanner Marsh led off the bottom of the first with a single. He would score two batters later on Jordan Jaffe’s RBI single. Jaffe would come around to score on a Georgia error as the score was tied at two. The Liberty bats would go cold from there. The Flames would only get one more hit in the final eight innings and would not score again.
Meanwhile, Georgia hit two more solo home runs in the third to regain the lead at 4-2. The Bulldogs would chase Zayac in the fourth as he gave way to Josh Swink. The Liberty starter suffered his first defeat of the season, falling to 9-1 on the season. He pitched 3.2 innings while allowing four runs on seven hits while walking four and striking out one. He allowed three home runs. Swink would get out of a bases loaded jam in the fourth when he entered.
Swink did enough to keep the Flames within striking distance. He pitched five innings, getting into the ninth before giving way to Aydan Decker-Petty to record the final Georgia out. Swink allowed two runs, both on solo home runs, and only surrendered three hits while walking four and striking out six.
“Bradley didn’t have his best stuff, but he competed for us,” said Liberty head coach Bradley LeCroy. “Swink was outstanding. We did enough on the defense and pitching side to be in the ball game. The bottom line is we had multiple opportunities to come up with a big hit in a big moment, we just couldn’t.”
Liberty threatened in the fifth getting two runners on with two outs before a Jaffe groundout ended the threat. The Bulldogs added a solo homer in the sixth to extend their lead to 5-2. Again in the seventh, the Flames pressured the SEC regular season and tournament champs. Liberty loaded the bases with one out before striking out and grounding out to end the threat. The Flames would not threaten again as they did not have another base runner in the game.
“It was tough,” LeCroy said of the 7th inning threat the Flames had. “Their pitchers did an outstanding job of getting ahead. We had some good moments, but we just couldn’t ever slug any. We didn’t do any damage. Too many ground balls. You have to give their pitchers credit, but we had opportunities, especially there in the 7th. That was the inning we could have done something. The 2-hole and 3-hole up and just didn’t capitalize.”
Georgia’s pitching trio of Dylan Vigue, Matt Scott, and Justin Byrd combined to hold the Flames to three hits, two of them coming in the first. Liberty struck out nine times and was unable to take advantage of seven walks. Tanner Marsh was 1 for 3 with a run. Jaffe was 1 for 4 with a run and RBI while Josh Campos was 1 for 4.
With their win, Georgia advances to Sunday’s regional final. They will play whoever wins the noon game between Liberty and Boston College. The Eagles staved off elimination Saturday with an 8-4 win over Long Island.
“Our goal is to win this regional,” said LeCroy. “We just didn’t get it done tonight. These guys our tough, they are resilient. We’ve got to go out and play well at 12 and then hopefully get another chance at Georgia tomorrow night.”
