Tech Falls in Game 2, Loses Atlanta Regional

When the Yellow Jacket baseball team woke up Sunday morning they knew they had to win three games in a row to win the NCAA Atlanta Regional and advance to a Super Regional. A 12-2 win over Austin Peay at was the first step, but Georgia Tech faltered during its second game Sunday.

The No. 1 seed Georgia Tech couldn’t solve Mississippi State starting pitcher Nick Routt in the nightcap of Sunday’s doubleheader and lost, 7-3, ending the Yellow Jackets’ season. With the win, Mississippi State advanced to the Super Regionals next weekend.

The Yellow Jackets erupted in Game 1, hitting four home runs and lacing 18 hits against Austin Peay while starter Buck Farmer held the Governors to just five hits over nine innings.

“I think we played a very good game all the way around," said Tech head coach Danny Hall. "I knew that it was important for us to get the lead and I kind of jumped on them hard. We got a couple big home runs and Buck Farmer was very dominate. It was a great performance by him and a great performance by our team.”

With that win behind them, the Yellow Jackets rested for a little over an hour, changed uniforms, and began their second game of the day; this one against the No. 3 seed Mississippi State.

The Bulldogs were in the winner’s bracket and needed just one win to clinch the Atlanta Regional. Georgia Tech needed a win on Sunday over Mississippi State to force a deciding game on Monday.

Mississippi State scored a run in the first inning on a Nick Vickerson RBI single. Then the Bulldogs scored two runs in the second inning and three in the third. Before Georgia Tech could get a runner on base, Mississippi State had a 6-0 lead.

Georgia Tech fought back, scoring a run in the fourth and another in the fifth inning, but the Yellow Jackets couldn’t completely claw their way back into the game and eventually lost.

“This was definitely a disappointing loss," said Hall. "I want to congratulate Mississippi State, I think they are playing very well and I thought they played good here tonight. I do not think that we played particularly well."

Forget their inability to score the runs needed to win; the Yellow Jackets did themselves in by committing six errors Sunday against Mississippi State.

"I just looked here (at the box score) and saw that we gave up one earned run," said Hall. "That is really what did us in, our miscues in the field gave them extra opportunities to score and extra outs and they capitalized on them."

When Georgia Tech wasn’t causing itself its own problems with errors, Bulldog starter Nick Routt was limiting Tech’s ability to score with an excellent effort on the mound. Routt threw a complete-game, six hitter – Mississippi State’s first complete game of the season – and struck out six Yellow Jackets.

“He was mainly throwing his fastball and we just could not hit it," said Tech catcher Zane Evans about Routt. "He was spotting it pretty well and I guess we were all looking for something different. He just kept throwing the fastball by us. He was not throwing anything crazy, just a flat fastball. We were not ready for it.”

Evans was responsible for one of Tech’s runs, his solo home run in the fifth inning kept hope alive for the Yellow Jackets, but Georgia Tech couldn’t string enough hits together to push hard enough.

Playing two games in the intense heat after two games the previous two days would have been an easy, built-in excuse for Hall. But he chalked up the loss not to fatigue, but to a lack of getting things done when the time came.

"I felt like we just did not make the plays," said Hall. "I do not think it was a case where we were tired or a step behind or anything like that, we were in place to catch the ball and just did not do it and made a couple of bad throws.”

Mississippi State will next play the Florida Gators in the Super Regionals in Gainesville.

Georgia Tech’s season is over and Hall said the sting of losing another Regional as the top seed on its home field wouldn’t go away until next fall when practice rolled around for next season.

The Yellow Jackets close out 2011 at 42-21.