No. 23 Georgia takes SEC road series from No. 1 Vanderbilt baseball in dominant fashion

The No. 23 Georgia Bulldogs defeated top-ranked Vanderbilt 9-1 Saturday for their first SEC series win over a No. 1 ranked team since 1993.

Sophomore Jonathan Cannon provided a career-performance to lead the Bulldogs (20-11, 5-7 SEC) who were the last team to beat Vanderbilt in a series dating back to 2019 when the Commodores went on to win a national title. Cannon provided seven shutout innings, allowing five hits, no walks and struck out nine to even his record at 2-2. Vanderbilt, who came into the series on a nine-game winning streak, dropped to 25-5 overall, 9-3 SEC.

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In 1993, the Bulldogs swept top-ranked Mississippi State at Foley Field. Today marked the highest ranked team Georgia has defeated in a road series in available records going back to at least 1993. The previous best was taking an SEC series 2-1 at No. 3 Miss. State in 2006.

Georgia took a 1-0 lead in the second. Connor Tate led off with a base hit to extend his on base streak to 11 games. Riley King would move him to second with a sacrifice bunt. With two outs, freshman Parks Harber came through with an RBI-single. In the fourth, freshman Corey Collins drew a leadoff walk. On a 2-0 count, Connor Tate blasted his third home run of the series, his sixth in SEC action and eighth overall, to make it 3-0. That would end Patrick Reilly's outing. Garrett Blaylock greeted Sam Hliboki with a double to right and King followed with an RBI-single to extend the Bulldogs lead to 4-0. Blaylock owns a career-best eight-game hitting streak.

SERIES. DUB.#GoDawgs | #RiseAbove pic.twitter.com/55MJif0sMN

— Georgia Baseball (@BaseballUGA) April 10, 2021

In the fifth, the Commodores put a pair of runners in scoring position with one out and Cannon came back with a couple of strikeouts to maintain a 4-0 edge. In the eighth, Georgia extended its lead to 6-0 on back-to-back doubles by Tate and Blaylock. The Commodores avoided a shutout with an RBI-double from Carter Young in the bottom of that inning. In the ninth, Georgia would tack on three more runs on an RBI-double from Ben Anderson and RBI-singles from Cole Tate and Corey Collins to make it 9-1. Freshman Jaden Woods pitched the final two frames for the Bulldogs. Vanderbilt starter Patrick Reilly fell to 3-1, allowing three runs on three hits in three innings.

Coming into the series, Vanderbilt's 1-2 punch of Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter were a combined 14-0 in 14 starts with an 0.64 ERA. Well, the Bulldogs beat Rocker and the Commodores 14-2 in the series opener, scoring six runs off him, and Leiter got a no decision as senior Ryan Webb matched him as both struck out 13 and allowed just a run in a 5-2 loss to Vanderbilt Friday.