May 4, 2008
ATLANTA – Derek Dietrich collected three hits and drove in five runs to lead Georgia Tech (33-14) to an 11-4 victory over No. 15 Coastal Carolina (38-11) Sunday afternoon at Russ Chandler Stadium. The win helped Tech to its second-straight weekend series victory after defeating Wake Forest in two of three games a week ago.
Dietrich drove in runs in the first, fifth, sixth and eighth innings and hit his 14th home run of the season as the Yellow Jackets pushed their streak to 15-consecutive games with a home run. Dietrich is the only freshman in the Atlantic Coast Conference with more than 10 home runs this season and leads all freshmen while standing second in the league with 56 RBI on the year.
Joining Dietrich with three hits on the afternoon was Patrick Long, who went 3-for-4 with a run scored, while Charlie Blackmon went 2-for-4 with three runs and two RBI in the game.
Tech starter Zach Von Tersch (6-3) limited the Chanticleers to two runs on four hits while striking out four in six innings to pick up his sixth win of the season. Andrew Robinson and Brad Rulon worked scoreless innings in relief of Von Tersch before Chris Hicks closed out the game for the Jackets by working the ninth inning.
The Jackets jumped on Coastal Carolina early, scoring an unearned run in the bottom of the first when Blackmon reached on an error, moved to third on a single by Jeff Rowland, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Dietrich. Tech added another run in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by Blackmon, which plated Patrick Long, who had reached earlier in the inning on a one-out single.
The Chants tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the third on a two-run single by Adam Rice, but the Jackets scored three in the fifth and four in the sixth to put the contest out of reach.
Dietrich hit a two-run home run with one out in the fifth inning, and Tony Plagman followed with his league-leading 15th homer of the season to make the score 5-2. It marked the third-consecutive game that Tech hit back-to-back home runs, and the second-straight day that Plagman followed a teammate’s home run with one of his own.
A pair of errors, singles by Blackmon and Dietrich, and a sacrifice fly from Plagman contributed to Tech’s four-run outburst in the sixth, which pushed the Jackets’ lead to seven runs at 9-2. Tech added two more in the eighth on a solo home run from Blackmon and a run-scoring single by Dietrich to cap its scoring at 11.
Coastal scored two with two outs in the top of the ninth for the final seven-run margin.
Chanticleer starter David Anderson (5-2) suffered just his second loss of the season after giving up five runs on five hits in 4.1 innings of work.
The Jackets will continue their out-of-conference schedule this week when they travel to Athens to take on the University of Georgia Wednesday at 7 p.m. The game can be seen on CSS and heard on 790 the Zone, while live stats will be available at Ramblinwreck.com.
–GT–
