COLLEGE BASEBALL WORLD SERIES RE-CAPS

JOEY VOLCHKO PRODUCES POWER OUTAGE AS GEORGIA TAMES TEXAS

OMAHA, Nebraska — A power display was expected by most in the SEC showdown between Georgia and Texas in the Men’s College World Series on Saturday.

A power outage was more like what everyone got, thanks mostly to Georgia pitcher Joey Volchko — who silenced the Texas bats in a performance for the MCWS ages. The Georgia ace went the distance, gave up just four hits and did not walk a batter until the ninth inning while striking out a career-high 15. The only run he gave up was unearned in Georgia’s 7-1 victory.

It was the first complete game of Volchko’s three-year college career.

“I thought Joey came out, really stuck to the game plan, and took control,” Georgia coach Wes Johnson said of Volchko, a junior transfer who played his first two college seasons at Stanford. “He started attacking the strike zone in the very first inning, being able to spin his breaking ball, and his curveball was really working.”

Volchko added: “There was a very clear plan. So to come out there and execute that was huge, and there was a lot of comfort in that.”

While his teammates found it comforting as well, Texas looked uncomfortable in all aspects at the start.

“There were two stories for this game,” Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “Number one, Joey Volchko was awesome. He didn’t walk a guy until the ninth inning and threw an endless amount of strikes. … Then the other story of the game is that, from a defensive standpoint, that’s the worst game we played the whole season, which is super disappointing on our end. That leaves a very bad taste in our mouths.”

For a long while Volchko and Texas ace Dylan Volantis were locked in a belated pitcher’s duel after a disastrous — and as it turned out, decisive — first inning for Texas. That inning and Volchko’s dominant performance were more than Georgia needed even before they added three more insurance runs late

The Bulldogs took advantage of the game’s only home run and some alarmingly sloppy play by the Longhorns to surge to a 4-0 lead after the strange opening inning. That was more than Volchko and the Dawgs would need to take the first meeting of the season between the top two teams in the SEC regular season, as they did not see each other because of the league’s unbalanced schedule.

With Volantis struggling with his command at the outset — he walked UGA leadoff hitter Tre Phelps, then later hit two batters and threw a wild pitch in the first — one of the few pitches he got over the plate in the opening inning was to No. 3 UGA hitter Rylan Lujo. And Lujo launched it off the foul pole in left field, which umpires at first did not rule a home run. Georgia quickly challenged and the video replay clearly showed it was a homer, giving UGA a 2-0 lead.

From there, it only got worse for Volantis and the Longhorns in the opening inning.

Twice Volantis struck out batters, only to have the ball escape the grasp of catcher Carson Tinney, who then compounded the problem on both occasions by committing throwing errors when attempting to throw to first base to complete the out. Lujo’s homer ended up being one of only two hits the Dawgs needed to plate the four runs in the first. Volantis needed 41 pitches to finally get out of the inning.

Texas simply seemed to lack laser focus badly in all ways for at least the first several innings.

Top-of-the-lineup hitters Aiden Robbins, Tinney and Anthony Pack Jr. all went down swinging as Volchko struck out the side in the first. In the top of the second, with Adrian Rodriguez in scoring position after singling and stealing second with one out, designated hitter Ethan Mendoza was called out on strikes for a time violation. He simply did not get into the batter’s box to hit before the pitch clock ran out, nor did he call for a timeout. In the bottom of the fourth, Texas first baseman Ashton Larson overran a catchable ball in foul territory, then slipped and fell down as he reached back for it, the ball bounding away on what looked like a sure out.

Texas did finally break through in the fifth, using a Georgia miscue to help get on the board. Rodriguez singled again, then drew an errant pickoff throw from Volchko that allowed him to motor all the way to third. He scored when Mendoza, the next batter, made amends for his earlier mental miscue by driving a liner to right field for a single of his own. That made it 4-1, but Mendoza was quickly erased from the basepaths when Larson grounded into a tailor-made double play and then Casey Borba struck out to end the inning.

That was the way the night went for Texas, as in it usually went in the way of Georgia and Volchko’s able right arm.

Volantis, who entered the night with a league-best 2.03 ERA, got it together after the rough start until he ran into more trouble not of his own doing when Georgia broke the game open with three more runs in the seventh. Despite hitting four batters in all, Volantis did not give up another hit over the next five innings of work after the two he surrendered in the first. He did not walk another batter after the first, either.

But when the seventh started with Phelps reaching base on an error by third baseman Borba, that opened the floodgates again and technically put an end to the duel between Volchko and Volantis. After Phelps advanced to second on another Volantis wild pitch, UGA’s Daniel Jackson hit a routine grounder to short that Martinez fielded cleanly — but he threw too late to third to try to eliminate the lead runner in Phelps.

It spiraled from there, as Lujo added an RBI double and Kenny Ishikawa a two-run single. Suddenly, what had been 4-1 was 7-1 — and the way Volchko was continuing to pitch, it was ame over.

Volantis ended up throwing 111 pitches over 6.1 innings, giving up just four hits and walking only one while striking out nine. But he hit four batters, threw two wild pitches, and gave up seven runs even though only two of them were earned.

===============

RAGER, LACHANCE MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE FOR OU VS. BAMA

OMAHA, Nebraska — After striking out the side to end the seventh inning in Saturday’s 9-0 win for Oklahoma over Alabama in the Men’s College World Series, OU pitcher Cord Rager let out a primal yell as he stalked off the mound and literally, deservedly strutted to the dugout.

It was a telling moment, and fitting that on the receiving end of all three outs that inning was his capable catcher, Deiten Lachance.

More than anyone else — and not by a little, but by a whole lot — those two Sooners had more to do with dominating the Crimson Tide from start to finish. Sure, others did their share of the damage. But it was Rager and Lachance who guided OU to aa 6-0 lead through six innings and set the table for all else.

The hard-throwing Rager might have seemed an unlikely hero to many. He entered the game with a 5.20 ERA. But you have to peel the layers of his season back like an onion to truly understand why he was the Sooners’ opening starter, well deserving of it, and why his stellar performance across seven scoreless innings vs. the Tide came as no surprise to his coach or teammates or anyone paying close attention.

Rager missed time earlier in the season because of a tender latissimus muscle and was inconsistent and often ineffective during stretches after returning to active duty.

But the 6-foot-6, 237-pound freshman has been overpowering of late. He carried a no-hitter through four innings Saturday, and through his full seven innings of work ended up surrendering just three hits, no walks and striking out eight, including those last three he faced.

“I just tried to tell myself it’s like any other game,” Rager said. “And I just worked the process. When I do that well, everything else just kind of fades away. So I had tunnel focus.”

It showed, and it appears he has had it for a while now.

Over his last three starts, all in the NCAA Tournament, Rager has now thrown a total of 19 innings while giving up just three runs for a 1.42 ERA. Perhaps even more impressive, he has walked just one batter and struck out 24. And over his last two starts including Saturday, he’s given up just four hits and zero runs over 13 innings.

Rager was out injured when OU faced Bama earlier in the season, so the Tide had no scouting report on him. That helped Rager — as if he needed any additional help — and clearly hurt Bama as well.

“I’m definitely not the same pitcher I was (earlier in the season). … Through all the SEC play, you learn so much, especially as a freshman,” said Rager, who added that he finally started feeling fully healthy again when he threw five innings of shutout, one-hit ball against Missouri on April 19. “And I really have learned so much, especially heading into the postseason.

“I’m kind of now finding the good mixture of pitches. I’m able to keep guys off-balance and I’m not getting ambushed by good hitters any more. … I used to just try to throw my heater by everybody, and the hitters in this league can ambush you like that if you don’t mix it up.” 

As for Lachance, he’s been a star particularly over the second half of the season, having entered the game vs. the Tide sporting a .332 batting average that is second on the team. His 15 homers and 62 RBI coming in lead the team.

But as the 6-5, 231-pound catcher lumbered into second base on a force play in the opening inning Saturday, he turned his ankle when he hit the bag awkwardly. It appeared for a moment as if he might even have to leave the game, although he insisted afterward that was never a thought in his own mind.

Lachance stayed in only after an extensive check by team trainer Sean Stryker and by attempting  briefly, and seeminly somewhat unsuccessfully, to limp it off.

So when Lachance ripped a two-run homer in the top of the sixth to take it from a 3-0 OU lead to a 5-0 lead that seemed like 20-0 the way Rager was pitching, and literally hobbled around the bases, it seemed symbolic of his team’s fight and determination to do more than make a cameo appearance at this MCWS.

“The way Cord was throwing, that lengthened their lead and made it really tough on us,” Alabama coach Rob Vaughn said. Then, of Lachance’s slow dance around the bases, Vaughn chuckled and added, “Man, he went full Kirk Gibson on us, didn’t he?”

The ode to the famous pinch-hit homer the then-gimpy Gibson launched for the Los Angeles Dodgers to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series likely is not known to Lachance, a junior from Quebec, Canada, who wasn’t born then. Anyway, Lachance downplayed his injury, and his role in the win, choosing instead to mostly credit Rager’s pitching.

Of his homer and the slow tour of the bases after his homer, Lachance laughed and said: “He gave me a good pitch and I hit it out. I took my time around the bases. There’s no timer to get around there.”

He said he merely tripped when getting to the bag in the opening inning while trying to decide rather to stop right on it or round it toward third.

“I was fine,” he insisted. “After that, it was just like a bruise a little bit. I’m good to go.”

So, too, does it now seem the Sooners are good to possibly go on a run in this MCWS.

About The Author

troyderengowski61@gmail.com

See author's posts