Diamond Dogs walk off Clemson

Freshman Parks Harber delivered a walk-off double in the ninth inning as No. 21 Georgia completed a series sweep of Clemson, winning 8-7 Tuesday at Foley Field.

The Bulldogs (24-12) have won six straight over the Tigers who dropped to 15-18 on the year. It was the seventh walk-off for Georgia this year, and the second courtesy of Harber who provided a solo home run in the 10th inning against Kennesaw State on March 23. On Tuesday, the rally began with a one-out walk to Buddy Floyd. He went to second on a base hit by Riley King and then Harber lined a double to center bringing Floyd home. The last time these teams met at Foley Field, the game lasted 20 innings and Georgia won 3-2 back in 2019.

In the bottom of the first Tuesday, freshman catcher Corey Collins put Georgia in front 2-0 with his seventh home run that extended his hitting streak to a career-best 10 games. Josh McAllister was aboard following a leadoff walk. Clemson looked to answer in the second as the first two hitters reached, and then freshman right-hander Hank Bearden came back to strike out the next three Tigers. Georgia freshman right-hander Will Pearson started the third, and the Tigers pushed across a run on a sacrifice fly by Caden Grice to make it 2-1. In the fourth, Davis Sharpe connected for his first home run of the year to tie the contest. In the bottom of the sixth, junior Josh McAllister launched his sixth home run, a solo shot off Kasesh Pandya to put the Bulldogs back in front 3-2. King’s solo home run in the bottom of the sixth gave Georgia a 4-2 advantage. However, the Tigers came back in the seventh, taking advantage of a pair of Bulldog miscues and a wild pitch to score four runs and jump out in front 6-4.

The Bulldogs responded in the bottom of the seventh as McAllister drew his second walk of the night and then Cole Tate blasted his second home run to tie the game at 6-all. In the eighth, Georgia went to its bench, with three straight pinch-hitters and they came through. Harber led off with a single, Fernando Gonzalez put a sacrifice bunt down and Luke Wagner lined a single to left. Then, McAllister made it 7-6 with an RBI-single. Clemson would answer in the ninth as Caden Grice doubled and scored to knot it at seven.

Junior Darryn Pasqua pitched two innings for the win and even his record to 2-2 while Tiger reliever Geoffrey Gilbert dropped to 1-4, allowing two runs on six hits over the final 2.1 innings. Seven pitchers saw action for the Buldogs.

Georgia returns to Southeastern Conference action Friday against Missouri in Columbia. First pitch is scheduled for 7:32 p.m. ET and will be available on SEC Network+ and can be heard on the Georgia Bulldog Sports Network.

Georgia’s Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach Scott Stricklin

On this team being younger in age but deeper in skillset…

“Coach (Scott) Daeley made that comment in the fall when it was all over with, he was like you know what, one through nine there might be some teams better than us, but I’ll tell you what there are not many teams 10 through 35. Just the depth we have on this team -- we have a lot of really good players. I think we threw seven different pitchers and played 14 different position players. Now with everyone healthy-- I mean knock on wood we can stay healthy; we can make some moves and do some things. There was a time when we couldn’t make a move, we couldn’t switch anyone out. Now with Corey (Collins) able to catch, and he is playing really well back there, we can just make different decisions and get different guys in the lineup.”

Parks Harber, 1B, Fr.

On how this season has allowed him to prepare for a moment like this…

“I think having 70-80 at bats under my belt is huge just for situations like that. High leverage situations that I’ve had success at, but I’ve also failed at. The biggest thing is learning from your failures. So, just being in that situation a few times this year has definitely had a role in helping me tonight just calming my nerves down a little bit. A month ago, my heart is racing and I’m trying to jump out of my shoes a little bit but I was for sure more calmed down tonight.”

#39 Darryn Pasqua, Junior,  LHP

On what he saw during the eighth and ninth innings…

“Just the same old close eighth and ninth innings that we’ve been pitching in as a staff for the last couple of months. Nothing really new…I give a lot of credit to the Clemson hitters who took a lot of close good pitches, and they made it really tough to battle the whole way but it was a fun atmosphere being close in the eighth and ninth. I’m glad we got out on top at the end.”

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