Georgia Baseball sweeps UNC Asheville on Opening Weekend

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia Baseball secured a sweep in its first series of the season. The Bulldogs defeated UNC-Asheville on the weekend behind a trio of strong showings from their offense as they put up 38 runs in 24 innings. For head coach Wes Johnson, it’s the first three wins of his career as he begins the “new era” at UGA, coming to Athens after helping LSU to a National Championship last season as the pitching coach in Baton Rouge.

“If I peel it all back on the spot, the thing that I’m happiest about is that we stayed competitive, stayed consistent and kept playing one pitch at a time. We didn’t look at the scoreboard, we didn’t care, it was just me versus you in the batters box and same thing on the mound,” Johnson told reporters after the game on Sunday. “That’s what you have to do. Our game is so hard as you guys know, and our league is so hard. The teams who can stay consistent and show up every day with a plan and an approach, those are the teams that have a chance to have some success. This weekend, we can check that box, but our challenge now is, are we able to carry it over to a midweek game.”

How It Happened…

Friday afternoon, it was a pair of home runs from Mississippi State transfer Slate Alford, plus a couple of shots from Fernando Gonzalez and Dylan Goldstein (Florida Atlantic) to led UGA in victory. While he didn’t get in on the action of the long balls, All-American Charlie Condon managed to impress with an RBI double that exited the bat at 118 miles per hour. Meanwhile, on the mound, Charlie Goldstein matched a career-high seven strikeouts in four innings of work before handing the ball to Kolten Smith and Jarvis Evans to close things out. As a staff, the Bulldogs allowed just two hits – both solo home runs – including only one in the 4.0 innings from Goldstein in the 11-2 Opening Day win.

Come Saturday, it was more of the same from Georgia at the plate, this time mashing six home runs including a pair from another transfer, Campbell’s Logan Jordan, on its way to a 17-5 victory. Jordan was joined by Gonzalez and Goldstein once again while Texas Tech transfer Dillon Carter got in on the action. Alford walked things off with a three-run blast in the eighth to bring on the run rule. Starting pitcher Christian Mracna (George Mason) went 4.0 innings in his Georgia debut – just his second career start – before giving way to a four-inning effort from the bullpen that featured Brian Zeldin (Penn), Blake Gillespie, Max DeJong, Brandt Pancer (Stanford) and Chandler Marsh, who struck out the side in the eighth.

Finally, on Sunday, it was an outstanding performance from starting pitcher Leighton Finley, combined with further offensive onslaught from the Bulldogs. Like the starters before him on the weekend, Finley went 4.0 innings, striking out a career-high five of the 14 batters he faced. He allowed just one hit – a double to Big South Preseason Player of the Year Robbie Burnett who hit a two home runs on the weekend – but managed to leave the runner stranded to exit scoreless.

A big third inning that saw five Georgia players cross the plate helped UGA extend its advantage early. After hitting a home run on Saturday, Carter had a couple of RBI on Sunday, but it was Alford that led the Bulldogs with three on the day as he took the team-high for the stat after the weekend with nine in three games. Both Alford and Condon had three hits on the day as the top of the UGA order.

A new pitcher to the team, Southern New Hampshire transfer Josh Roberge, entered in relief of Finley, earned the save and helped keep Asheville scoreless on the day before Kolby Branch (Baylor) scored on an RBI single by Paul Toetz (Purdue ) to end it at 10-0 in seven innings.

Georgia (3-0) will make the short trip to Atlanta for its midweek contest, a 3:00 p.m. first-pitch at Georgia State on Tuesday, before returning to Athens next weekend to host Northern Kentucky.