Morning, y’all!
Georgia baseball beat Texas yet again Tuesday night to stay alive in the College World Series.
The Longhorns are eliminated, and the Bulldogs live to fight another day.
They’ll face Oklahoma at 7 p.m. Wednesday night for the Bracket 2 championship. To make the CWS finals and have a chance at its first national championship since 1990, Georgia will need to win Wednesday and again Thursday in a winner-take-all game.
The Sooners have already beaten Georgia once — teams in Oklahoma’s position have won their bracket 76% of the time over the past 25 College World Series.
But this Georgia team will keep fighting.
Before we talk more about what’s to come, let’s recap Tuesday’s win against Texas, especially since it looked much different for the typically power-hitting Bulldogs.
Georgia baseball beats Texas again, this time with small ball
With nothing but the season at stake, Georgia won in a fashion most unbecoming a team that leads Division I in home runs.
In an elimination game at the College World Series, whatever it takes.
In a loser’s bracket game Tuesday night, the Bulldogs scraped out a 2-0 win over Texas to keep their season alive for at least one more day.
Their bats quieted for the third game in a row at Charles Schwab Field, the Bulldogs humbled themselves to play small ball to eke out their two runs.
They were enough because of a career performance by starter Dylan Vigue and dominating relief performance by Justin Byrd, who closed out the game with a strikeout of Ashton Larson. Bulldogs players spilled out of the dugout and the bullpen to celebrate on the infield, serenaded by chants of “UGA!” from the stands.
Before a packed house on an idyllic Midwestern night, the Bulldogs were the picture of desperation against the Longhorns. Texas starter Luke Harrison had no-hit Georgia through four innings with 10 strikeouts.
The Bulldogs, arguably the top offense in Division I, remained in the funk that had trailed them since their arrival in Omaha, Nebraska.
But in the top of the fifth in a scoreless game, Brennan Hudson worked a walk on a 3-2 count and got to third without the ball leaving the infield — taking second on just the Bulldogs’ third sacrifice bunt of the season (by Kolby Branch) and then reaching third on a groundout to Harrison.
All-American Tre Phelps brought him home with an actual base hit, a double to score Hudson and break up the no-hitter.
Quote of the day
“And then as crazy as this sounds, we bunted tonight, I think that was our third true sacrifice on the year. It was just going to be that kind of night. And then we actually scored that second run on a ball that’s, I don’t know, 40 feet behind third on a tag play. So just proud our guys, the way we got in there and competed.” — Georgia coach Wes Johnson on winning with small ball
What comes next as Bulldogs face Oklahoma again
Looking at Wednesday’s matchup against Oklahoma, the Sooners will start another freshman on the mound in Nick Wesloski.
The right-hander has made 13 appearances this season — just one start — posting a 4.03 ERA in 29 innings and has a 29-to-11 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Wesloski made his only start of the year during regionals against The Citadel back on May 31 — where he threw seven innings, allowed six hits, five runs (three earned), walked three, and struck out as many.
Oklahoma had success Monday using a freshman against Georgia and will try to neutralize the best offense in baseball in consecutive games. The Sooners beat Georgia 4-3 on Monday night, earning Tuesday as a day of rest.
Georgia has not announced a starter for the game, but expect another group effort out of the bullpen. Matt Scott and Paul Farley loom as possible options. Georgia used just two pitchers on Tuesday and a total of four through three games.
Hitting has to come around, right?
A lineup that has destroyed pitching the entire season is now hitting .186 at Charles Schwab Field and slugging .340. Their season averages before the CWS were .326 and .628, respectively, both in the top 5 nationally.
Tuesday, Texas’ Harrison struck out 11 Bulldogs, a career high. That followed Oklahoma’s Xander Mercurius doing the same on Monday with nine strikeouts.
Phelps looked more comfortable at the plate Tuesday, getting Georgia’s first hit off Harrison with a run-scoring double in the fifth and then reaching base with a seeing-eye single. In Omaha, he had been 1-for-11 with four strikeouts before his two hits Tuesday.
“I know (assistant head coach Will Coggin) will turn it around and probably not have the strikeout-to-walk ratio we did (Tuesday),” Phelps said. “I’m 100% confident of that.”
Georgia baseball gets shoutout from Kirby Smart
After its win against Texas, Georgia needs to defeat Oklahoma twice — Wednesday and Thursday — to advance to a best-of-three CWS finale.
Smart, for one, said the so-called “Diamond Dawgs” have the right trait to do just that.
“They are resilient,” Smart said during an in-game interview at Charles Schwab Field as the Bulldogs defeated the Longhorns 7-1 in both teams’ CWS opener. He was asked about the similarities between Johnson’s team and his national title-winning Georgia football squads.
“They win games different ways. A lot of different guys have stepped up,” Smart said. “They’ve had low scoring games, high scoring games. They are obviously powerful, but they are resilient.”
Indeed, that’s what Smart’s 2021 Georgia football team was en route to its College Football Playoff championship after falling 41-24 to Alabama in the SEC title game.
3-star DL Antwan McKoy commits to Georgia football
Time to talk a little football.
Georgia or South Carolina.
For Antwan McKoy, the decision was always going to be one of those two schools. The 3-star DL prospect from St. Paul’s High School in North Carolina finally made his decision Tuesday.
McKoy is the nation’s No. 52 DL and the No. 451 overall prospect for 2027 on the 247Sports Composite. The Rivals Industry Ranking has him as the No. 50 DL and No. 471 overall.
The young DL with an 85-inch wingspan had to be a Dawg.
“The culture, players and winning atmosphere, honestly, and I want to be a part of that,” he said.
McKoy now becomes the 17th commitment in the 2027 class for Georgia. He’s the third DL prospect in the class. The Bulldogs have now picked up four commitments since 4-star OT Kennedee Jackson flipped to UGA on Saturday.
This commitment now moves Georgia’s 2027 class to No. 9 nationally on the 247Sports team rankings. Rivals has UGA at No. 12 in the country.
He also becomes the eighth highest-rated commitment in the class at this time. The 6-foot-3, 295-pound rising senior said he’s known he wanted to be in Athens for a while now.
“After the spring practice, I saw what I was looking for,” he said.
He described it in detail.
“I saw a lot of things that I liked,” he said. “From the coaching standpoints. The player’s standpoint. The way the players reacted to the coaches. They were all kind of hyping themselves up. Those were all things I really liked.”
Luckie shouldn’t be overlooked for his role
Lawson Luckie is the veteran in Georgia’s tight end room. He’s entering his senior season and is the unquestioned leader of one of the most talented position groups in the country.
What is worth wondering about is how big a role Luckie will play in Georgia’s passing offense this season. Luckie finished with just 15 catches last season, a step back from what he did in 2024.
Luckie still has plenty of admirers, both on the Georgia coaching staff and in NFL circles. There’s little doubt about what Luckie can do when he gets the ball in his hands, as his three-touchdown game against Ole Miss last year showed.
“Luckie has ascended to TE1 on Georgia’s depth chart and is looking to build on the positive moments that he showed in 2025,” ESPN’s Jordan Reid said of Luckie. “The production has been limited thus far — 15 catches for 158 yards and four touchdowns last season — but he is expected to be a breakout player. His alignment versatility gives the Bulldogs’ offense options, as he can be a pass-catching weapon while also being used as a serviceable in-line blocker.”
Georgia does have to replace Oscar Delp, who was taken in the third round of last year’s NFL draft.
In some ways, Luckie will occupy much of the same role Delp did last year. Luckie won’t come off the field and is expected to be an excellent blocker for the Bulldogs.
But the 20 receptions Delp had last season won’t all be funneled to Luckie.
And as a senior, he’s going to have to keep improving if he’s to be Georgia’s top tight end this coming season.
Jaden Reddell had a strong showing during Georgia’s spring game. Meanwhile, sophomore Elyiss Williams is similarly being tabbed as a breakout player this fall.
