University of Georgia Athletics
Scenes From The Series
October 18, 2016 | Baseball
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Keegan McGovern will take his steak medium, as will Tucker Maxwell. Tony Locey, the pitching star of Sunday's winner-take-all game, will go with medium rare.
All three were members of the Black team in the Georgia baseball team's fall-ball "World Series" against the Red squad. After splitting the first two games, there was more than just juicy steaks on the line Sunday at Foley Field. The losers would get hot dogs, yes, but even worse, the losers will have to serve the steaks to the winning side.
"They've got to serve it and then clean up afterwards," Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said of the Red team, following the Black squad's 9-2 rout on Sunday.
The Red team took game one Thursday, 5-1, behind five shutout innings from pitcher Drew Moody. The Black team drew even Friday, edging the Red 4-3 and making Sunday's fall finale the deciding game. The Black squad scored three runs in the first inning Sunday, got four stellar innings from pitcher Tony Locey and cruised to its steak reward.
Here are some of the highlights and memorable moments from the Bulldogs' three-game fall wrap-up:
— The defensive play of the whole series was made by Black squad right fielder Riley King, a freshman, one of 19 new players on Georgia's roster this season. An infielder making the transition to the outfield, King looked like a natural on a hard-hit ball to his left in the sixth inning of Thursday's series opener. He took off after it and made a spectacular diving catch, soaring at least four feet off the ground to make the grab.
"I saw the ball off the bat and I was on a full sprint," King said. "I had a feeling I could catch it. The ball was tailing away and I'm starting to learn on that, and I just went up, full lunge, laid out and came up with it. It was an awesome feeling."
— Friday's game started off with the Red's Tucker Bradley earning a walk at the end of a 10-pitch at-bat against Black starter Kevin Smith. Cam Shepherd then came up and belted a line-drive to right that just kept going. King leapt up at the wall to try to catch it and fell to the base of the wall. There was no reaction from either dugout because nobody knew if King had made the catch.
"I thought I had it," King said, but he didn't.
Once King didn't celebrate what would have been a great catch, the Red squad celebrated its 2-0 lead.
Stricklin liked the homer, for sure, but he also was very pleased with the lengthy at-bat by Bradley to get on base for Shepherd.
"That's what you need off your lead-off guy,," he said, "you need someone to have a great at-bat leading off the game."
— The Black squad tied Friday's game, a 6 p.m. start that ended under the lights, with two runs in the bottom of the second and pulled ahead for good in the third on Keegan McGovern's monster two-run homer to right-center field. It was by far the loudest crack of the bat of the series and the line-drive shot was still moving very fast as it soared over the 370-foot sign on the outfield wall.
"Right after I hit it I didn't think it had enough height to get over the fence so I started running out of the box," McGovern said, "but it ended up going over which was nice."
McGovern's homer went at least 400 feet; his next at-bat, a double, traveled about 15. He got way under the pitch and sent it soaring straight up into the night — and the lights. Multiple Red players lost it in the lights and it wound up dropping onto the grass about a free-throw away from home plate.
"It was probably a pitch I wish I had back, but after I hit it I knew I had to hustle this out just in case," McGovern said. "I'm glad I could be standing on second."
McGovern, a junior, took off out of the batter's box and never stopped running, much to his coach's delight.
"It turned into a double because of the way he ran," Stricklin said, "he never stopped running and that's just leadership; that's having an upperclassman play really hard."
— Freshman right-hander Tony Locey got the start for the Black team Sunday and made the absolute most of the opportunity. He pitched four innings and shut down all 12 batters he faced, striking out seven. He didn't throw a ball until the second inning.
"I felt good in the bullpen and I knew no matter what, just throw strikes," he said.
One thing that made the big, strong Locey, listed at 6-foot-3, 237 pounds, stand out, aside from all the strikes he was throwing, was his rather rumpled appearance. Most of his shirt was untucked before he even threw his first pitch and it stayed that way the whole game. It's not often you see a baseball player on the mound or in the field with a shirt untucked.
"We need to get a longer jersey," Stricklin said. "His jersey came undone a little bit, but that's not his look. His jersey's a little short. ... It's the first time we've had the (game) jerseys on, we've had the practice jerseys on, so we need to maybe make an adjustment on his."
— Tucker Maxwell, another freshman, like King, Locey, Shepherd and numerous other contributors during the series, added the Black squad's exclamation point on the series win with a three-run homer to right field in the sixth inning. The centerfielder ended the day with four RBIs.
"After getting beat inside all day it felt good to finally connect with one," Maxwell said.
Stricklin said he liked what he saw from his young guys, many of whom will be challenging for playing time when the season begins.
"I feel really good that we've got a lot of guys that can play, that can contribute," he said. "We're not checking birth certificates. If you're good enough to play, you're going to get out on the field."
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
