In front of 3,795 spectators at Foley Field on Friday afternoon, the eighth-ranked Georgia Bulldogs upset Army, 8–7, in the opening game of the NCAA Baseball Tournament Athens Regional.
The NCAA Regional that took place in Athens on Friday was the first to be held there since 2019. Georgia had not participated in the event since 2022.
For his fifteenth start of the season, sophomore right-hander Leighton Finley (5-1) took the mound. In 3.2 innings, he gave up five hits, four runs, two walks, and one strikeout.
SEC Player of the Year for 2024 In the first inning, Charlie Condon (3-3, RBI, 2B, HR, 2 IBB) launched his 36th home run of the season and his 61st career home run.
With an RBI single in the second and a two-RBI double in the sixth, Slate Alford (3-5, 3 RBI, 2B) scored three runs on the day.
Graduate Dylan Carter (3 BB, 2 HBP) was scored by fellow graduate Clayton Chadwick (1-4, RBI, 2B, HPB) in the fifth inning with his 15th double of the season.
Carter was scored by senior Fernando Gonzalez on a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning, giving the Bulldogs an 8-7 lead.
With 1.1 innings pitched, one hit allowed, one walk, and two strikeouts, graduate right-hander Christian Mracna (4-2) won his fourth win of the season. He entered the game in the eighth inning.
Wes Johnson, head coach of Ike Cousins.
In the games involving the top four seeds,
“It seems to be good. It demonstrates college baseball’s depth. Regardless of their performance during the season, you can typically count on three or four reliable arms to support you during the game or to make some plays when you play teams who advance to this tournament. Many teams take that week off, or even longer for them; they use that time to regroup, which gives them the opportunity to attack us. They were able to prepare for it for a few weeks and they produced some excellent swings today. They most likely had a pretty decent notion of what we were going to do on the mound. The most important thing in these games, in my opinion—and I discuss this with our boys frequently—is that we cannot panic. This is a challenging game. Breaks will come and pressure will mount, but in these one-versus-four games, the winning team is usually the one that can maintain composure and stick to their game plan whether they are at the plate or on the mound. The teams who perform well are those ones.”
#24 Charlie Condon, a Redshirt Sophomore and 3B
Regarding retaliation, Coach Johnson stated, “Army deserves all the praise in the world. The entire game, they had us completely wrapped up. Those men don’t seem too quitting. Our goal is to initiate play with a strong attacking tone and establish the game’s tempo from the outset. That kind of early punch puts your resources in the dugout to the test. The lesson here, as it has been in many of the games we’ve played this year, is, in my opinion, simply that offensive productivity counts from one to nine. This lineup doesn’t have any slow moments. You can’t say, “We’re going to have to wait until next inning,” as you take the bat in any given inning. Guys are heading up there prepared to provide excellent at-bats in all directions. That greatly simplifies things.”
#45 RHP | Graduate Christian Mracna
Regarding managing the situation and Coach Johnson’s impact…
“I know how much it meant to the team and how hard we worked for those moments, so it was definitely a high-stakes situation. I made a sincere effort to simply give it my all. I didn’t feel hurried at all because we’ve been getting ready for occasions like that throughout the year.”
