OMAHA, Neb. – Georgia was not at its best Monday night and now its national-title aspirations are greatly impaired.

In a winner’s bracket game at the College World Series, the Bulldogs stumbled through a sloppy first inning, had their potent bats quieted and fell to Oklahoma 4-3.

Now in the loser’s bracket, Georgia will play Texas in an elimination game Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET while the Sooners will wait and rest to play the winner on Wednesday. Were the Bulldogs to defeat the Longhorns Tuesday, they would have to beat Oklahoma Wednesday night and then again Thursday.

Down 4-3 in the top of the ninth, Georgia had runners on first and second with one out and its two best hitters coming to bat. But Tre Phelps struck out and national player of the year Dan Jackson flied to center, prompting Sooners to burst forth from the dugout and the bullpen to celebrate.

It is an estimable hole that coach Wes Johnson’s team has fallen into. In the past 25 College World Series, the team that won the second-round winner’s bracket game has won 38 of 50 brackets to advance to the championship round.

The thousands of Georgia fans who have traveled to this metropolis in the plains to support their beloved Bulldogs were as muted much of Monday night as they were boisterous Saturday, when Georgia rolled to a 7-1 win over Texas behind Joey Volchko’s complete-game gem.

After exploiting a shaky first inning by Texas to win Saturday’s opener, the Bulldogs wobbled similarly.

In the bottom of the first, UGA starter Caden Aoki gave up a leadoff double, hit the second batter and then threw wildly to second on a pickoff attempt to advance the runners.

A grounder to short scored Oklahoma’s first run. And then after starting out 0-2 against cleanup hitter Jaxon Willits, Aoki gave up a two-out home run on a 2-2 pitch for a 3-0 Sooners lead.

It was a most unanticipated start for Georgia and Aoki, a fifth-year senior and All-American whom Johnson described as having a “slow heartbeat” and someone who wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the College World Series stage.

Aoki recovered to spin a gem, finishing with an eight-inning,115-pitch complete game in which he gave up eight hits, struck out six and walked none.

Meanwhile, Georgia could not solve Oklahoma starter Xander Mercurius.

Consistently getting ahead in the count against the Bulldogs’ vaunted lineup, the freshman held Georgia to three runs in 7 1/3 innings with nine strikeouts against two walks in the fourth start of his career.

Georgia, arguably the top-hitting team in college baseball, has managed just six extra-base hits in two games at Charles Schwab Field.

The Bulldogs made a late charge, as Jackson homered in the eighth to cut the lead to 4-3. After Georgia put two on after that, Ryan Wynn hit a two-out line drive to right that was caught at the warning track and surely would have cleared the short right-field porch of Foley Field.

That was followed by the unsuccessful rally try in the top of the ninth.

Georgia (52-13) lost for just the second time in the past 22 games. Oklahoma (40-22), which finished tied for 11th in the regular season in the SEC, is on some kind of postseason run after losing its final four series of the regular season.

The Sooners beat Georgia Tech, the ACC regular-season and tournament champions, in the Atlanta Regional, emerging from the loser’s bracket to oust the Yellow Jackets with back-to-back wins.

In its super-regional matchup, Oklahoma then knocked out the Big 12 regular-season and conference champions in Kansas.

And, Monday, the Sooners gave the SEC regular-season and tournament champions their first loss of the postseason.