ATHENS – Sixth-ranked Georgia fell to No. 21 Tennessee, 7-4, on opening day of Southeastern Conference play on Friday at Foley Field.

Fast Facts 

•  Junior Joey Volchko got the start on the mound for Georgia (15-4, 0-1 SEC) and tossed five innings of two-run ball with eight strikeouts. Tennessee’s Brandon Arvidson (1-0) received the win, while junior Justin Byrd (0-1) was credited with the loss. 
• Tennessee (14-4, 1-0 SEC) opened scoring in the third inning with two runs off an RBI single. 
• The Bulldogs broke open in the bottom of the fifth with four runs. With two outs on the board, junior Ryan Black stepped to the plate and launched his fourth home run of the season to give Georgia its first run. Sophomore Rylan Lujo singled and stole second before an RBI single from Brennan Hudson plated him to knot the board. Junior Tre Phelps extended his on-base streak to 16 games with a double to left center before he and Hudson scoring off a Daniel Jackson two-RBI single to give the Bulldogs a 4-2 boost. 
• After two scoreless innings for the Volunteers, they answered in the top of the sixth with a two-RBI double to tie it, 4-4. Tennessee then had back-to-back home run innings with a solo in the seventh and two in the eighth, to take a 7-4 lead to win it.  

Quotes 

Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach Wes Johnson

On the team’s performance…

“We’ve got to do a better job of executing with two strikes. We can’t miss our spot as bad as we did. You’ve got to tip your hat to them. They’re hitters. We have some of the same pitches, but we didn’t do damage on them. When you’re playing quality teams in our league on Friday night, it’s going to come down to the guys who can hit the mistakes, and the guys that can’t do that usually don’t come out on top. Tonight, we didn’t. We had one inning where we mustered something together, but we’ve got to do a better job of grinding out at bats and executing pitches in the areas we’re trying to get them to with two strikes.”

Up Next

The Bulldogs will return to action tomorrow evening for the second game of the series against the Volunteers. First pitch is set for 5 p.m. The game will be live at SEC Network and on the Georgia Bulldogs Sports Network.