Georgia Tech Walks Off for Second Consecutive Game Over Syracuse

By Tom Russo

CitrusTV Softball Beat Reporter

ATLANTA – Last night, Skye Webb was the hero. Today, it was Cameron Stanford.

For the second day in a row, a walk-off single handed Georgia Tech (29-23, 10-10 Atlantic Coast) the win over Syracuse (20-27, 8-12) 8-7 on Saturday.

It was once again a back and forth battle; Syracuse opened the scoring on an Alex Acevedo RBI single up the middle in the top of the first before Georgia Tech answered immediately. An error by Acevedo gave the Yellow Jackets their first run, and a Miranda Hearn wild pitch surrendered the lead in the bottom of the first.

Hansen continues to be a bright spot for the Orange as the senior went deep for the second consecutive day. She nailed a three-run shot to left center gap in the top of the third to give Syracuse the lead back, 4-2.

Tech had the answer once again as Kaylee Ellebracht tied the game with a two-run double down the left field line in the bottom half.

AJ Kaiser grabbed SU its third lead of the game in the top of the fourth with a solo blast to straightaway center.  Kaiser lead the Orange with six homers on the season.

GT responded, plating two runs on a Webb single and an Lailoni Mayfield error in the bottom of the fourth. The Yellow Jackets went up 7-5 by the end of the fifth due to an RBI single by Stanford.

Then, it was Syracuse’s turn to knot it up. Carideo got one back on an RBI single in the sixth before Neli Casares-Maher saved the Orange from the brink with a two-out RBI single up the middle to even the score.

Coach Doepking turned to her ace Alexa Romero to try and force extra innings with half an inning remaing. However, Romero did not fare much better than she did in her start yesterday.

A leadoff walk followed by a Carideo error put the winning runner on second with nobody out.  A single moved it to third.  Then, Stanford punched the walk-off hit into right.

Syracuse will now look to avoid the sweep in the final game of the series tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m.

twrusso@syr.edu ǀ @TomRusso24