The final five innings of Notre Dame baseball’s Tuesday home opener was a thrilling display of dominance. Freshman infielder Bino Watters mashed two home runs, junior shortstop Estevan Moreno hit for the program’s first cycle in nine years and Irish pitching shut down the Butler Bulldogs for an 18-4 win.
Unfortunately for Irish fans, Notre Dame followed with a weekend dud.
Georgia Tech, a team likely bound for the NCAA Tournament that will almost certainly be ranked this coming week, swept the Irish in three games and improved to 20-4 (7-2 ACC). Notre Dame never led in its first conference series at home, falling to 12-9 (1-8 ACC) by suffering its second sweep since ACC play began.
Friday: Georgia Tech 18, Notre Dame 7
Always a high-level program at the plate, Georgia Tech entered the weekend with an offense at or near the top of the ACC in nearly every category. And despite playing all three games in South Bend without everyday first baseman and three-hole hitter Kent Schmidt, the Yellow Jackets still put up 37 total runs.
The production began only two pitches into Friday’s game, which featured a stiff wind blowing straight out to left field. Georgia Tech leadoff man and shortstop Kyle Lodise used it for a solo shot off Irish sophomore starting pitcher Jack Radel. Freshman Caleb Daniel, occupying the third spot in place of Schmidt, followed a Notre Dame error with a two-run blast to right, giving the Yellow Jackets an instant 3-0 lead.
The opening inning was just the first of seven instances in which Georgia Tech would tally multiple runs in a single frame. It happened again in the second, when Lodise slammed a two-run long ball over the fence in left. Then again in the third, when Georgia Tech brought all nine starters to the plate, scored three runs to take an 8-0 lead and chased Radel from the game. Notre Dame’s offense finally issued a retort with Moreno’s two-run triple in the bottom of the third, but still had a long, long way to go.
The gap grew wider as Georgia Tech began to tee off on Notre Dame’s bullpen, starting with freshman right-hander Kellan Klosterman. Daniel’s leadoff double in the fourth, which put him a triple shy of the cycle, set up back-to-back RBI singles from Vahn Lackey and Carson Kerce. Sophomore lefty Justin Mayes Jr. entered the game and finally had a bit of success against the Yellow Jacket offense, striking out three before Georgia Tech figured him out in the fifth. During that three-run inning, which put the visitors ahead 13-3, Lodise clobbered his third home run of the day and Daniel collected his fourth base hit.
Though the Irish hitters struggled to put the ball in play, punching out seven times against Yellow Jacket starter Tate McKee, they found more success on the long ball in the middle innings. Freshman second baseman Noah Coy went to dead center field for his first collegiate home run in the fourth, sophomore catcher Carson Tinney walloped a three-run shot in the sixth and Watters rocketed his third home run of the week in the seventh.
However, those efforts only briefly kept the Irish out of run-rule territory, as Georgia Tech’s offense went back to work after a scoreless sixth. The Yellow Jackets plated three runs in the seventh and two in the eighth, allowing reliever Brett Barfield to strike out four in two innings to seal an 18-7 victory in eight innings.
Lodise finished the game with 15 total bases, adding a triple to his three-homer, five-RBI day in the sixth. Daniel got on base five times in his three-hole debut, coming around to score on all five occasions. Lackey drove in a run in each of his final four trips to the dish, while freshman pitcher Alex Hernandez walked four times and scored four runs. In total, Georgia Tech took 12 walks while striking out just six times.
Watters and fellow freshman infielder Parker Brzustewicz were Notre Dame’s only players with multiple hits.
Saturday: Georgia Tech 9, Notre Dame 5
Georgia Tech again raced out of the gate in game two, putting five runs on graduate starting pitcher Jackson Dennies in the second inning. The Yellow Jackets once more batted around, as Kerce opened the scoring with a double before freshman Will Baker launched his first collegiate home run, a two-run shot. Daniel and Hernandez would complete the active half-inning by each driving in a run on an extra-base hit, placing Notre Dame in another deep hole early.
The Irish initially battled back, though. They rallied back from four consecutive strikeouts against Georgia Tech starter Brady Jones to bat around and register three runs in the third. Six consecutive Notre Dame hitters reached at one point, with Brzustewicz and Moreno driving in the runs on singles.
Once within a 5-3 deficit, Notre Dame loaded the bases with one out, needing only a single from freshman outfielder Jayce Lee or graduate infielder Connor Hincks to tie the game. However, 32nd-year Georgia Tech head coach Danny Hall made the wise call to deploy Mason Patel, the ace of his bullpen and one of college baseball’s best relievers. Not only did Patel kill Notre Dame’s momentum by retiring Lee and Hincks without a run scoring, but he also pitched the final 6.2 innings of the game.
Dennies settled down for the Irish after his second-inning struggle, zipping through 1-2-3 innings in the third and fourth. However, Georgia Tech got to him in the fifth, scoring two runs to send him packing and take a 7-3 lead. Senior reliever Ricky Reeth allowed another pair of runs in the sixth, both on Lodise’s fourth home run of the weekend. All told, Georgia Tech produced 13 hits while striking out one time in Saturday’s first seven innings, dropping another offensive masterclass on the Irish.
With Patel and his microscopic earned run average on the mound, the game was practically over from its midway point onward. Moreno scorched his fifth home run of the season in the eighth and a fifth Irish run scored during the final-out sequence, but Georgia Tech still won handily The series win was Georgia Tech’s first as a program in South Bend and moved it to 19-4 for the first time in more than decade.
Lodise added to his ACC Player of the Week case in game two, going 3-for-5 with two singles and the sixth-inning home run. Kerce also provided three hits for the Yellow Jackets, driving in two runs.
On the Notre Dame side, graduate outfielder Jared Zimbardo singled twice from the leadoff spot, while Moreno brought in two runs for the fourth consecutive game.
Sunday: Georgia Tech 10, Notre Dame 2
At long last, Notre Dame was finally in a game with the Yellow Jackets on Sunday. However, neither that fact nor the finale’s weather-related rescheduling from 1 p.m. to 11 a.m. stopped Georgia Tech from jumping ahead early. This time, Lackey went the other way for a two-run, two-out single off junior starting pitcher Rory Fox in the first, putting the Irish behind before they could pick up a bat.
Unlike the two starters before, Fox kept the Georgia Tech lead from ballooning, settling in to throw four consecutive scoreless and hitless innings to finish his outing. Notre Dame’s offense capitalized on his work to get the game tied, first manufacturing a run in the third without recording a base hit. Sophomore catcher Davis Johnson then led off the fourth and found the left-center field batter’s eye with a titanic home run, leveling the score at 2-2.
That again forced Georgia Tech’s starter, Riley Stanford, out of the game early. The Yellow Jacket bullpen, tasked with holding down the Irish across six innings for a second consecutive day, delivered one more time. The Irish were a pitiful 1-for-20 with at least one runner on base, with the only hit occurring with the game well in hand in the ninth inning and punched out 14 times at the plate. Caden Gaudette (two strikeouts in a scoreless fourth), winning pitcher Jaylen Paden (five strikeouts in three innings) and former Notre Dame hurler Caden Spivey (four strikeouts in two innings) took care of things on the Georgia Tech mound.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s bullpen completely unraveled with the score still 2-2 entering the seventh inning. After a couple of well-placed singles on the infield led to Baker’s go-ahead RBI in the seventh, the Irish began to pitch erratically. Freshman Chase Van Ameyde and graduate student Tobey McDonough combined to walk three in a row during the seventh – one of those walks ending a 16-pitch Daniel at-bat. In the end, Georgia Tech plated four runs in the seventh, one in the eighth and three of the ninth. Four of those eight late runs crossed the plate on Notre Dame wild pitches.
Kerce and Baker each had two-hit games near the bottom of the order for Georgia Tech, while Lodise was finally held without a hit or RBI. Only Brzustewicz provided multiple hits for the Irish.
The upcoming week won’t make things any easier for Notre Dame. Their midweek matchup is a far cry from a pushover, as Big Ten foe Michigan State will come to Frank Eck Stadium on Wednesday. Two days later, former Irish skipper Link Jarrett and 2024 College World Series qualifier Florida State will come to town for three games.
If the Irish can’t turn the page in a hurry, there’s a very real chance they enter April with a losing record overall and 10 games below .500 within ACC play. They’ll host the Spartans at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening.
