Georgia shuts down Ole Miss in Game 3 to capture series rubber game
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Georgia had a long and draining Saturday in Oxford, splitting a pair of games with SEC rival Ole Miss to set up a dramatic series rubber game on Sunday afternoon.
And after a 10-8 loss in Saturday’s series opener followed by an exhausting 9-7 victory in 14 innings, things settled down on Sunday, and No. 5 Georgia was the team leaving town with the bragging rights after a 5-1 victory over the 17th-ranked Rebels.
It was Georgia’s 6th SEC series victory this season, including its 4th series win on the road. After blowing an 8-0 lead in that series-opening loss on Saturday and then outlasting Ole Miss in the 14-innning marathon to get the Saturday split, the Bulldogs were the better team on Sunday in the battle of SEC powers.
Georgia improved to 34-11 overall this season to go with a 15-6 SEC mark. Meanwhile, Ole Miss dropped to 31-14 overall and is now barely over .500 in the SEC at 11-10.
The Dawgs’ pitching plans went awry on Sunday, with Dylan Vigue being scratched. But graduate right-hander Caden Aoki stepped up in Vigue’s absence and did an incredible job after he had already pitched in relief in Game 1 of the series on Saturday. All Aoki did on Sunday was toss 6 innings of 1-run ball, striking out 7, to improve to 6-0 this season.
Aoki retired 15 of the final 16 batters he faced, striking out the side during his final inning of work.
After Ryan Wynn’s 2-out RBI single tied the game in the second inning, it was catcher Daniel Jackson who gave Georgia the lead for good on Sunday. The junior smacked his SEC-leading 21st home run to start the third inning, giving the Dawgs a 2-1 lead.
A sacrifice fly by Rylan Lujo in the seventh inning scored Ryan Black to give Georgia a 3-1 cushion, and that cushion was extended by the Bulldogs with a pair of insurance runs in the ninth inning.
Georgia will try to build on the momentum from this past weekend’s series victory, with of course an eye on June and the College World Series. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the odds for the top teams in the mix to make it to Omaha:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
