Golden Eagles fall to Ga. Tech

Published 12:15 am Monday, June 1, 2009

ATLANTA (AP) — Luke Murton became the 10th player in Georgia Tech history to hit 20 homers in a season and the Yellow Jackets beat Southern Mississippi 10-3 on Sunday night.

Murton, Jay Dantzler and Cole Leonida hit homers in the first two innings for Georgia Tech (38-18-1), which won two games Sunday to set up tonight’s regional final game against Southern Miss. The winner will face Florida in the super regionals.

The Yellow Jackets beat Elon 8-4 in an elimination game earlier Sunday.

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Andrew Robinson (1-0) gave up two runs in five innings in his second career start for Georgia Tech.

Pinch-hitter Kyle Maxie homered in the ninth inning for the Eagles (37-24).

Earlier in the day in Atlanta, nine straight Georgia Tech batters reached safely in a seven-run second, and the Yellow Jackets beat Elon 8-4 on Sunday to eliminate the Phoenix from the NCAA tournament.

Georgia Tech (37-18-1) overcame nine walks by its three pitchers to beat Elon (41-18).

Jake Davies (3-0) gave up one run in his only inning in relief of Zach Von Tersch. Mark Pope closed the game with five scoreless innings for his eighth save.

Daniel Britt (8-1), who pitched one inning Saturday to earn the save in Elon’s 4-3 win over Georgia State, lasted only 1 1-3 innings and gave up five runs as the surprise starter.

Vanderbilt 8, Louisville 4

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Commodores used the old fashion ingredient of timely hitting and strong pitching to top the No. 1 seeded Louisville Cardinals, 8-4 at Jim Patterson Stadium Sunday night. With the win, Vanderbilt (37-26) will advance to its third regional final in its last four years.

Vanderbilt will play Louisville in the regional finals at 6 p.m. today.

For the second game in a row, Vanderbilt jumped out to an early lead to take some of the pressure off starting pitcher, Nick Christiani.

After giving up a first-inning run, Christiani found a groove and threw four-straight scoreless innings while the Commodore hitters did damage of their own.

Vanderbilt got on the board in the top of the first inning when Curt Casali, Steven Liddle and Andrew Giobbi collected consecutive two-out singles. Casali scored the first run of the game when he scored on Giobbi’s RBI single to shortstop.

The Commodores pushed its lead to 5-1 in the second inning when they took advantage of two Louisville errors with timely hitting. Riley Reynolds, Brian Harris, and Casali all recorded RBI singles in the inning.

VU added one more run in the fourth and two in the six while Louisville plated two in the sixth and one in the eighth.

Chase Reid pitch the last 1.2 innings, fanning four of the five batters he faced for his second save of the season.

Vanderbilt 6, Middle Tennessee 0

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Caleb Cotham threw a four-hitter, and Aaron Westlake and Jonathan White each homered to help eliminate Middle Tennessee from the NCAA tournament.

The Commodores (36-26) avenged a first-game loss to the Blue Raiders (44-18) in Louisville.

Cotham limited the Sun Belt Conference’s best hitting team to three singles and a double.