April 28, 2002
ATLANTA – Matt Murton homered twice and drove in four runs to lead 10th-ranked Georgia Tech (36-9, 10-7 ACC) to a 9-3 win over visiting Virginia (23-23, 8-10 ACC) on Sunday afternoon at Russ Chandler Stadium. The victory gave the Yellow Jackets a 2-1 edge in the three-game series with the Cavaliers.
Tech starter Brian Burks (8-3) won for the second time in six days after holding the Cavaliers to three runs in seven innings. He scattered 10 hits and two walks while striking out five batters. Relievers Aaron Walker and Philip Perry combined to work two scoreless innings to close out the game.
Murton was a perfect 3-for-3 in the game with two walks while hitting his sixth and seventh home runs of the season. Tech’s Jeremy Slayden went 3-for-5, while Victor Menocal and Jason Perry added two hits apiece. After being held to a combined nine hits in the first two games of the series, the Yellow Jackets exploded for 13 hits in the game.
The Yellow Jackets took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first with Murton’s first homer of the day, a two-run shot that plated Slayden.
Virginia rallied for three runs in the top of the fourth to take a 3-1 lead. Dan Street had a RBI double and Robert Word had a RBI single before Mark Reynolds drove in the final run of the inning with a sacrifice fly. Tech immediately answered with three runs in the bottom of that inning to retake the lead at 5-3. The Yellow Jackets had five hits in the inning, including RBI singles from Slayden and Matthew Boggs, while Menocal added a sac fly.
Tech pushed the lead to 7-3 in the sixth inning on RBI singles from Slayden and Perry before Murton capped the scoring with his second two-run homer of the day in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Virginia starter Canon Hickman (4-5) took the loss, allowing five runs in 3.1 innings of work.
Following a week off for spring semester final exams, Georgia Tech will return to action when the Yellow Jackets host top-ranked Clemson for a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference beginning Saturday at 7 p.m. Live radio broadcasts for the entire series can be heard on WREK-Radio (91.1 FM in Atlanta) and on the internet at www.ramblinwreck.com. Live scoring for the game will be available at www.ramblinwreck.com.
