University of Tennessee Athletics
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Georgia
Tennessee Edged by Georgia, 2-1
March 20, 2015 | Baseball
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- In their Friday night home opener of SEC play against Georgia, Tennessee struggled to come back from an early Bulldogs lead and fell, 2-1, at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
With the loss, Tennessee (9-9) moves to 1-3 in SEC competition this year, while Georgia (13-9) is also now 1-3.
"We had some opportunities on a Friday night," Head Coach Dave Serrano said. "You don't get many opportunities in this league and it's important to take good at-bats in those situations. We do need to cut down on our strikeouts, and we know that. We need to cut down on our swings and put the ball in play. I think that was the difference in tonight's baseball game."
Senior righthander Bret Marks (2-2) dealt a career-high 8.1 innings in his sixth start of the season, allowing just two runs on four hits while striking out seven Bulldog batters. His 8.1 innings surpassed his previous 8.0 inning performance last week against No. 3-ranked Florida in Gainesville.
Georgia got on the boards first in the second inning, as second baseman Mike Bell knocked a two-run homer over the left field wall off of Tennessee starter Marks. The Volunteers chipped away at the lead in the third on back-to-back doubles from juniors A.J. Simcox and Christin Stewart, making it a 2-1 ballgame. UT went on to load the bases with two outs, but the rally fell short after UGA's left fielder Keegan McGovern ran down a deep ball in the left-center gap hit by designated hitter Jordan Rodgers.
After the second inning, Marks steadied and allowed just two hits, retiring 12 straight batters and 18 of 19 batters faced through the middle frames on Friday night's contest. For the second week in a row, Marks began the ninth inning on the mound for the Vols and was relieved by lefty Andy Cox. Cox used five pitches to retire his two batters faced in the final frame and hold Georgia to a 2-1 lead for UT.
"I really felt like that was Brett Marks' best outing of the year, to be honest with you," Serrano said. "You can look to last weekend and how he was so dominant, but he didn't have his stuff for the first three innings. I credit him, his mental toughness, his maturity; he battled. A lot of guys would have crumbled there and said, `This isn't my night.' And he battled and took us all the way to the ninth. He was at 120 pitches and gave us everything he had."
"We play for each other," Stewart said following the game. "You want to win for [Bret Marks], especially after pitching like that. We're just going to come out and try and win the series."
Tennessee continues the three-game weekend series with Georgia on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET, as lefthander Drake Owenby (1-2) will receive the starting nod against Bulldogs lefty Ryan Lawlor (2-3).
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