AUGUSTA, Ga - West Georgia Baseball is back in the win column after a 12-9 win over the Augusta Jaguars on Wednesday.
Nick Morgan got the nod on the bump for the midweek tilt, and produced one of his best outings of the season. Morgan went three innings,while only allowing three hits and one run.
"Nick threw the ball well. The reason we started him today is because he is a strike thrower and he can get the ball in the zone. He did everything we needed him to do to get our offense going today" said Head Coach
Jeff Smith
The Wolves got on the board early in the first, thanks to a throwing error on a double steal by the Jaguars catcher, allowing
Collin Moore to push across the game's first run.
That would be it for either team until the top of the third when Moore scored again, this time on a fielder's choice by
Sam Ladner. Through two and a half, the Wolves were up 2-0.
In the bottom of the third, the Jaguars would get their first run of the game thanks to a Pat Galvin RBI double. The score was 2-1 at the end of three.
Smith would bring in
Riley King to start the fourth, but the young lefty was unable to record an out, so Smith was forced to make another move, this time to
Ezra Brown. Brown would inherit a bases loaded, no out jam, and allowed four runs to come across for the Jaguars. Finally, Smith would bring in
Austyn Wright to finish the fourth inning. After four, we were tied 5-5.
"In the last five or so games, our issue hasn't been offensively, it has been on the mound and our ability to command secondary pitches" said Smith. "Our offense is leading the conference in hitting, so we've got to do a better job of not walking or hitting guys and as we do that, we're going to do fine" Smith stated.
Austyn Wright would continue on the mound for the Wolves, and would turn in his most impressive outing of the season so far.
In the sixth, the offense would show up again, this time in the form of a grand slam by
Sam Ladner.
"Sam's clutch. He puts the barrel on the ball and gets us a grand slam to tack on a few runs." said Smith.
The score would remain the same until the eighth, when
Collin Moore would grab his second RBI of the contest, courtesy of a sac fly that scored
Cody Mish. The score would be 10-5 heading to the bottom of the eighth.
In that bottom frame, the Jaguars would get a grand slam of their own, thanks to two walks and a hit by pitch to load the bases. Smith would call on Ronny Peipmeier to finish the eighth.
"Out of the nine runs that they scored, seven of them were either walks or hit by pitches, so once we eliminate that, we are going to separate ourselves from the teams were playing, and it's not going to be as close of games" Smith said.
Heading into the ninth, the Wolves were clinging to a one run lead.
In the top of the ninth,
Anthony Calabro would cash in with an RBI single scoring
Logan Fink, and, just for good measure,
Brody Wortham delivered an RBI of his own to give the Wolves a 12-9 lead headed to the final frame.
That was all that Piepmeier would need as he would sit down the Jaguars in order to finish the ballgame.
The Wolves are back in action this weekend vs. Auburn Montgomery. First pitch is set for 1:00p.m. on Saturday.
