 |
|
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the morning Dominic de la Osa graduated from Vanderbilt, at night he delivered a clutch two-run homer in the seventh inning to lead the Commodores to a 13-7 comeback win over Georgia Friday night in front of 3,200 fans at Hawkins Field.
The Commodores cut the Bulldogs Southeastern Conference lead to just two games and improved to 37-13 overall and 15-9 in league play. The Bulldogs fell to 31-17-1 and 17-7-1 in conference action.
VU held a 6-3 lead going into the seventh before the resilient Georgia club struck for four runs to take a 7-6 lead. David Macias led off the inning with a single and de la Osa then crushed UGA starter Trevor Holder’s 0-1 pitch onto the batter’s eye to dead center field to give the Commodores an 8-7 lead they would not relinquish. Pedro Alvarez was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on Ryan Flaherty’s single through the left side. Feinberg faked a bunt attempt and singled to right to bring in Alvarez and Robin added a RBI grounder to score Flaherty to make it 10-7.
The Dores added three more runs in the eighth, two coming off a David Macias homer over the Green Monster in left. It was his seventh round-tripper of the year. De la Osa was hit by a pitch, stole second and scored on Alvarez’ RBI single up the middle to make it 13-7.
“It (de la Osa’s homerun) was the momentum changer at that particular time,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin after the game. “I didnt feel like our guys were deflated. We gave up some runs and had a tough seventh inning. We just came right back. When Macias got the two-strike hit and Dom hit one off the batters’ eye, it broke the game open.”
Freshman reliever Russell Brewer pitched 2.2 innings of two-hit shutout relief with a career high seven strikeouts and no walks to improve to 4-0 on the year.
Georgia took a 1-0 lead in the second on a sacrifice fly by catcher Joey Lewis.
VU responded with a five-run bottom half, with Macias notching a two-run double and de la Osa a two-run triple. He scored on a RBI groundout by Alvarez to make it 5-1.
Lewis’ two-run homer in the fifth off of VU starter Mike Minor cut the lead to 5-3. Minor ended up giving up three runs on nine hits in 5.1 innings with five strikeouts and two walks and left the game with a 5-3 lead.
Steven Liddle’s RBI single in the sixth made it 6-3.
Gordon Beckham’s two-run single in the seventh cut the lead to 6-5. Rich Poythress’ RBI single to right-center tied the game and Lyle Allen’s RBI single to right gave the Bulldogs a 7-6 lead.
Macias had three hits and four RBI and de la Osa added two hits and four RBI to lead the Vanderbilt offensive attack.
“When you get eight RBIs from the one and two hole hitters, that’s pretty good,” stated Corbin.
Ryan Flaherty, Alex Feinberg and Steven Liddle each had two hits to help pace the 15 hit attack.
Rich Poythress and Lyle Allen led Georgia with four hits apiece.
Holder was tagged for 10 runs on 12 hits in six innings with two strikeouts and two walks to drop to 7-3 on the year.
The Commodores and Bulldogs will play the second game of the three game set tomorrow at 2 p.m. VU will send freshman right-hander Caleb Cotham to the hill, while UGA will throw junior right-hander Steven Dodson.
Georgia 010 020 400 – 7 16 0
Vanderbilt 050 001 43x – 13 15 1
Holder, Esmonde (7), Earls (8) and Lewis. Minor, Reid (6), Schwartz (7), Brewer (8) and Robin. W- Brewer 4-0, L- Holder 7-3. Sv-None. HR: UGA: Lewis (4), VU: de la Osa (8), Macias (7)
