May 6, 2003
ATLANTA – Steven Blackwood’s eighth inning grand slam broke a 3-3 tie and lifted No. 11 Georgia Tech (34-13) to a 11-3 win over Georgia State (22-25) on Tuesday evening at Russ Chandler Stadium.
With the scored knotted at 3-3 after seven innings of play, Georgia Tech loaded the bases with no outs on a double from Micah Owings and a pair of walks to Clifton Remole and Jeremy Slayden. After Tyler Greene struck out, Blackwood followed with a home run that landed on top of the television truck behind the right field wall. Blackwood, a freshman who had a season best five RBI in the game, hit his fourth home run and second grand slam of the season.
The Yellow Jackets added four unearned runs in the ninth, including RBI singles from Andy Hawranick and Cameron Lane. The Panthers committed five errors in the game that led to four unearned runs.
Chris Goodman (7-2) earned the win in relief, working 5.2 innings and surrendering just one unearned run. He allowed four hits and one walk while striking out three batters. The right-hander allowed just four runners to advance past first base. Nick Wagner worked two shutout innings to close out the game.
Georgia State reliever Isaac Haynes (0-1) took the loss, allowing three runs in 0.2 innings.
The Panthers took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning with the aid of two walks and a hit batsman. With runners on first and third bases and one out, Tim Burgess delivered a RBI single to right field that scored Stephen Burroughs, and Mike Buchanan scored when Tech starter Kyle Schmidt committed a balk on a pickoff move to first base.
The Yellow Jackets climbed to within 2-1 in the top of the fifth inning. Tech loaded the bases with one out on three consecutive walks and Eric Patterson drove in Tyler Greene with a sacrifice fly to center field.
Tech scored two runs in the seventh to take a 3-2 lead. After Greene walked and Blackwood reached on an error by second baseman Mike Buchanan to put runners on second and third bases with no outs, Hawranick delivered a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Greene and tied the score. Patterson followed with a RBI single up the middle to drive in Blackwood and give the Yellow Jackets a one run lead.
Georgia State answered immediately in the bottom of the seventh inning and tied the score at 3-3 after Kyle Breitbach reached on an error by Patterson, took third on Kevin Kawasaki’s single to right field and scored on Sean Fitzgerald’s RBI single to right field.
The Yellow Jackets had just eight hits in the game, but were aided by 12 walks and five errors by the Panthers.
Georgia Tech will host Savannah State on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Radio coverage will be available on WREK-Radio (91.1 FM in Atlanta), while live statistics and the radio broadcast will be available on the internet at www.ramblinwreck.com.
