Georgia Tech Ends Cal's Run in ACC Baseball Tournament

Cal’s bid for a third straight upset in the ACC baseball tournament was dealt a crushing blow in the first inning, and the Golden Bears could not overcome the awful start against top-seeded Georgia Tech on Thursday.

Georgia Tech, the regular-season ACC champion, got home runs from three of its first six batters in the first inning and hit seven homers for the game, leading to a 10-3 victory over the 16th-seeded Golden Bears in a quarterfinal game in Durham, North Carolina.

Cal had defeated ninth-seeded Miami and eighth-seeded Wake Forest in its first two games of the tournament this week, scoring 26 runs in those two contests combined. It sparked hope that maybe Cal could win five games in a row in the conference tournament to earn an NCAA tournament berth.

However, the Bears’ offense could not keep up the pace against Georgia Tech (40-16). Cal outhit Georgia Tech 12-10, and the Bears had the leadoff batter on base in seven straight innings from the second to the eighth. But Cal (24-31) did not have any extra-base hits and could not get the big hit, leaving 12 runners on base.

Jacob French went 4-for-5 for Cal on Thursday and was 9-for-13 for the three games in the tournament, but it was not enough.

Meanwhile, seven of Georgia Tech’s 10 hits were home runs, including Vahn Lackey’s inside-the-park home run in the eighth, and those long balls accounted for all of the Yellow Jackets’ runs. Drew Burress had the first and the last of Georgia Tech’s homers on Thursday.

Cal sophomore pitcher JJ Hollis made just his third career start on Thursday, and it was not pretty, as he gave up three homers to the first six Georgia Tech batters in the first inning. He lasted just two-thirds of an inning and the Bears trailed 4-0 when he was replaced by David Shaw with two outs in the first.

On Hollis’ second pitch of the game, Georgia Tech leadoff hitter Burress blasted a long home run, his 17th of the year. After Kent Schmidt followed with a line-drive single, No. 3 hitter Kyle Lodise hit a home run to center, his 16th, making it a 3-0 game after Hollis had faced just three batters.

Hollis got outs on the next two batters, but the sixth Yellow Jackets hitter, Caleb Daniel, belted a home run about 20 rows deep in the right-field bleachers to make it 4-0 and Hollis was gone. It resulted in Hollis’ first decision of the season, making him 0-1.

Cal pitcher Cole Tremain kept the Bears in the game after that, hurling one-hit shutout ball over the next five innings.

The Bears got within 4-2 with a run in the fifth inning and Dominic Smaldino’s RBI single in the top of the seventh.

But a homer by Georgia Tech’s Drew Rogers in the bottom of the seventh, and home runs by Lackey and Alex Hernandez in the eighth made it 7-2.

Burress hit his second home run of the game, a three-run shot, later in the eighth inning to make it 10-2.

Carl Schmidt added an RBI single in the top of the ninth for the Bears’ final run, but it left the Bears well short.

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