Syracuse beats Georgia Tech 7-1 for 1st ACC series win of season

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Julianna Verni was put in a tricky situation in her second relief outing of the weekend for Syracuse.

Up 5-1 in the fourth inning, after Madison Knight left the game with a right shoulder injury, Verni was tasked with stopping a Georgia Tech threat. The previous batter for GT, Reese Hunter, put the Yellow Jackets on the board with an RBI double.

Knight exited with a 3-1 count, and Verni’s first pitch was a ball, putting runners on first and second. A wild pitch to the next batter, Paige Vukadinovich, advanced the runners. Georgia Tech was a base hit away from cutting the deficit to just two. Verni had to get the out.

“You have no other choice than to back up your teammates,” Verni said, “and be there for them in that situation and get it done.”

She got the job done, causing Vukadinovich to swing right through the next pitch for a strikeout. The chance was thwarted, and the Orange maintained a four-run lead.

Syracuse (16-14, 4-8 Atlantic Coast Conference) finished off its series against Georgia Tech (23-14, 9-6 ACC) in a 7-1 victory to clinch SU’s first ACC series win of the year after dropping its first three to Duke, Virginia and Boston College.

“It’s just huge,” Syracuse infielder Rebecca Clyde said postgame on winning the series. “These were games that we were perfectly capable of (winning), and we got them, so it’s a huge thing for us.”

For the second straight day, the Orange wasted no time getting to a Georgia Tech starting pitcher. On the first offering of the day from Blake Neleman, Angel Jasso ripped a single to left field. Madelyn Lopez promptly opened up the scoring, when she took Neleman’s pitch on a line over the right field wall for a home run. SU was up 2-0 without recording an out.

Syracuse continued to put pressure on Neleman, and knocked her out of the contest in the bottom of the second after a base hit and walk put two runners on with two outs. Syracuse then caught a major break, when Jasso hit a lazy pop fly to left field. Madison Dobbins couldn’t track it and dropped the ball, leading to another SU run. Lopez cashed in on the mistake further, clobbering a single up the middle for her third and fourth RBIs on the day to extend the Orange’s lead to 5-0.

“Coach (Shannon Doepking) sat us down and asked us personally what we felt needed fixing,” Lopez said. “So this week, we went back to the basic stuff and I think that really helped us.”

Two walks to start the third created Georgia Tech’s first chance to get on the board. But Knight bounced back with two straight strikeouts and induced a Dobbins pop up to end the threat.

The Yellow Jackets did get their first run of the game in the fourth, after Knight surrendered a two-out walk, with two straight borderline strike-zone pitches not going her way. Hunter followed by lacing a double down the right-field line, cutting the deficit to four.

After Knight exited the circle with an injury, Verni cleaned up the damage and kept the game at 5-1. Verni had another shutdown inning in the fifth, ending on a jumping catch by Jasso in center field as she crashed into the wall.

In the bottom of the fifth, Laila Morales-Alves broke the game open for Syracuse. Taylor Posner was hit by a pitch to leadoff, and a single by Kelly Breen put two runners on with no one out. Morales-Alves wasted no time, sending a double down the right-field line to bring both runners home.

Verni stepped into the circle in the top of the sixth, set to face the heart of the order for Georgia Tech. She sat down each batter, striking out the side and putting a rest to any opportunity for a GT comeback. The bench greeted her in a mob of celebration.

“Sometimes we ease off of (the energy),” Clyde said. “And when we do, we’re not the same team and we don’t play well.”

The game ended after the sixth inning, officially sealing the series for Syracuse. The victory not only gave it the first ACC series win of the season, but it established the standard in which SU needs to play heading into the rest of its conference schedule.

“We expect to continue to perform the way we are now,” Verni said, “and do exactly what we know how to do and love to do.”