For the first five innings, sophomore pitcher Justin Grimm was perfect in the Georgia baseball team’s 12-8 victory over Youngstown State on Sunday.

Fifteen Youngstown State Penguins (0-3) stepped to the plate, and 15 quickly sat down.

“I was cruising along and mainly concentrating on throwing strikes,” Grimm said.

But Grimm and the rest of the Diamond Dogs (3-0) entered the Bizarro World that was the sixth inning.

Grimm lost his bid at perfection after striking out pinch hitter Anthony Porter, who reached base after the ball eluded catcher Joey Lewis. Porter then advanced to second on a Lewis throwing error, moved to third on a Grimm balk and scored on a David Leon sacrifice fly.

The next batter, C.J. Morris, hit a sinking line drive to Georgia left fielder Peter Verdin that was initially ruled an error before being changed to a hit, breaking up Grimm’s no hitter and drawing ire from the Foley Field faithful.

“I didn’t agree with the call,” Grimm said. “But the call is definitely the call and you just have to go with it and not let it get to you.”

The next hitter Jason Reitenbach then ended any potential controversy with a clean single to right.

After a John Koehnlein sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third, pinch hitter Tom Clayton hit a grounder to first baseman Rich Poythress, who flipped the ball to a covering Grimm to seemingly end the inning – except Grimm dropped the baseball and allowed both runners to score and cut Georgia’s lead to 5-3.

“We let one error snowball into three in [the sixth] with a walk in there and guys mixed in a couple hits,” Poythress said. “And a good ball team, any ball team is going to take advantage of that.”

Shortstop Michael Demperio made a throwing error on the following play, allowing another Penguin to cross the plate. YSU then took a 6-5 lead one batter later as Jacke Healey hit a two-run double to left field off of new pitcher Steve Esmonde (1-0).

The craziness continued in the bottom half of the inning following after Corey Vukovic (0-1) walked leadoff man Johnathan Taylor. After Demperio fouled off a bunt attempt, Taylor advanced to second on an apparent balk. Demperio then singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch.

Poythress restored Georgia’s lead with a 3-run home run off the scoreboard in right field and Lewis extended Georgia’s lead to 9-6 with a solo shot into the left field trees two batters later.

“Our team got pushed a little bit and we responded and learned a valuable lesson without taking a loss to learn it,” Georgia head coach David Perno said. “But we were able to push through and learn it and hopefully we can make some improvements and handle the game a little bit better.”

The Dogs added two more runs in the bottom of the seventh thanks to an error by YSU center fielder Cory Hornyak, a wild pitch and a suicide squeeze executed by Taylor.

In the top of the eighth, after having their first two batters strike out, the Penguins responded with two runs to bring the score to 11-8 and loaded the bases before eventually being retired. Georgia scored its’ 12th run on a Bryce Massanari double that scored Poythress.