Monday, May 21, 2012

DIAMOND DOGS TOP NO. 1 HURRICANES

By on June 15, 2008

Ed Morales

The Georgia baseball team scored four runs in the ninth inning to come from behind and beat No. 1 Miami 7-4 in the College World Series Saturday night in Omaha, Neb.

Georgia will meet Stanford in the winner’s bracket Monday night at 7 following the Cardinal’s 16-5 win over Florida State. The game will be televised on ESPN2.

“Miami’s the best team we’ve played all year,” Georgia head coach David Perno said. “Up and down the line up, they have tremendous hitters, a tremendous starter and they have a great bullpen. We had to coach every pitch. (Joshua) Fields fought like there was no tomorrow. We played every pitch hard. We played close to our identity and just kept battling, hanging in there and hoping the big inning would get there when we needed it to.”

The Bulldogs capitalized on a throwing error by Miami closer Carlos Gutierrez’s for two runs in the ninth. Miami lost for the first time in 46 games in which it led after eight innings.

Miami’s meltdown started when Bryce Massanari singled up the middle leading off the ninth. Pinch-runner Adam Fuller moved over on Matt Cerione’s sacrifice, and Robbie O’Bryan reached when he swung at Gutierrez’s wild pitch on strike three, putting runners at the corners.

Lyle Allen singled in the tying run before David Thoms grounded to Gutierrez (5-4), who threw far wide of first baseman Yonder Alonso. Two runs scored as the ball rolled into the Georgia bullpen. Thoms ended up on third and scored on Ryan Peisel’s single to left.

Joshua Fields (3-2) pitched 1 1-3 innings of shutout relief to get the win.

Miami took a 3-1 lead early on, but Bulldog Ryan Peisel hit a two-run shot in the sixth to knot the game at 3-3. Miami added a home run in the seventh to take the lead before Georgia’s ninth-inning outburst.

“That’s one of the best wins that I’ve ever been a part of and to do it on this stage like we did, competing for all nine innings, was a lot of fun,” Peisel said. “we just battled all night. It was sweet redemption for a lot of us guys who went two and Q (out) in 2006.”

The Associated Press and Georgia Sports Communications contributed to this story.