Georgia unable to out-dawg Mississippi State during weekend series

The Georgia Bulldogs finished out a tough three game series against the 23rd ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs yesterday evening as Georgia suffered a close 9-8 loss in game three as they dropped their second game of the three game series. Prior to the series, the Diamond Dawgs kicked off their week with a huge 10-1 win over the Georgia State Panthers. Tre Phelps and Kolby Branch would lead the way for the Dawgs offense as both guys earned three hits and a pair of home runs on the day.

Unfortunately, Georgia would be unable to carry that momentum into game one of the Mississippi State series as the Diamond Dawgs would fall by a final score of 6-1. The Dawgs would manage to regroup in game two as they earned a hard fought 3-2 win. Brian Zeldin earned the win in game two as the Dawgs’ pitcher put in 4.2 innings of work and managed to rack up eight strikeouts while giving up zero earned runs.

Charlie Condon and Clayton Chadwick would both hit home runs of their own as it would be all the offense the Diamond Dawgs needed for the win.

Game three would be back and forth all throughout as both teams hit the ball well and continued to overcome deficits. Unfortunately, Georgia’s pitching would not be able to hold up in game three as the Diamond Dawgs blew a 5-0 lead. Georgia would also make more defensive mistakes as Mississippi State transfer and current Georgia second baseman Slate Alford would make a crucial error in the eighth inning as he would boot a routine ground-ball. Mississippi State would tie the ballgame on the error and eventually earn the go ahead run the following at bat as they would hold off the Diamond Dawgs in the top of the ninth and cap off the series finale with the win. The main bright spot in game three for Georgia would be from the bat of Kolby Branch as Branch would finish his day going 2-for-5 with four RBIs as he launched a huge grand slam in the top of the third.

Georgia now sits at 24-8 on the season as they hold a 5-7 record in SEC play, the Diamond Dawgs will pick play back up Tuesday as they will take on the Owls of Kennesaw State. Following that game, Georgia will stay put in Athens as they will get ready for a three game set against the Missouri Tigers with game one set to get started at 7 p.m. ET on SEC network.