Georgia moved in front of Liberty 4-2 on Saturday in the NCAA Athens Regional winners bracket game, turning a tied start into an early postseason lead with a power surge that changed the shape of the afternoon. The No. 3 national seed had already beaten Long Island 18-2, and now it was trying to keep control of a regional path that suddenly looked cleaner if it could finish the job.
The game, played at 5 p.m. and streamed on +, matched Georgia’s 47-12 season against Liberty, a 42-19 team that had opened the regional with a 4-3 win over Boston College. Georgia was the home team in the bracket but batted first, and Daniel Jackson answered early pressure with a two-run home run in the first inning after Tre Phelps singled to center. Jackson’s shot over the 370-foot sign in right center was his 29th of the season.
Liberty pushed back immediately. Tanner Marsh singled, stole second and scored on an RBI single by Jordan Jaffe, and a throwing error by Ryan Wynn extended the inning long enough for Liberty to score two and tie the game 2-2 going into the second. That left Georgia in a spot it did not want after a long day that had already included a rain-delayed finish to its game against LIU earlier Saturday.
Georgia had started right-hander Dylan Vigue, and the choice carried some weight. Before the game, coach Wes Johnson said he felt “real good” about Vigue, calling his bullpen work in the week leading up to the regional really good and saying he liked the matchup as long as the right-hander threw strikes. Vigue had also been coming off a rough SEC Tournament start against Florida, when he gave up six runs and two home runs in 2 2/3 innings.
That promise did not last long. Vigue worked 1 1/3 innings, allowed two hits and two runs, and walked three while striking out one before Georgia turned to Matt Scott. The change settled the game quickly. Scott retired Liberty in order in the third, and Georgia’s offense kept pressing from there, with Kenny Ishikawa homering to right field and Wynn later bouncing back with a 426-foot drive over the Wells Fargo sign in left field to stretch the lead to 4-2 going to the fourth.
Johnson had said after Georgia finished off LIU that the group’s maturity helps it handle multiple games, and Saturday’s start fit that test. Liberty arrived as the No. 3 regional seed, 7-16 all-time in the NCAA Tournament and back in the field for the first time since 2022. Georgia and Liberty had not met in 13 years, but the first few innings showed how thin the margin was in a double-elimination regional: one side trying to ride its power, the other trying to survive a shaky start and stay on the winner’s side of the bracket. The only question left was whether Georgia could hold the edge it had built.
