Georgia Tech Baseball wins season opener 3-2 over Old Dominion

Clutch pitching and small ball get the job done

RUSS CHANDLER STADIUM — It wasn’t their normal style, but Georgia Tech Baseball began the season 1-0 after a 3-2 win over Old Dominion in a quick two hours and thirty-four minutes in front of 1,286 in attendance.

“Happy that we hung in there and found a way to win…I thought we threw the ball really well on the mound and I thought Tate McKee was outstanding,” said Tech head coach Danny Hall, who began his 32nd season as Georgia Tech’s head coach today.

It was Mckee’s first of what should be many Friday starts this season, holding the Monarchs to a single run (unearned) over five innings with only two hits allowed. Despite throwing efficienty over those five innings, Hall was comfortable making the switch to Carson Ballard in the sixth inning.

“As much as it’s pitch count, it’s just getting up and sitting down five different times, so it felt good to bring Ballard in,” said Hall.

The offense was not as electric as Tech baseball fans are used to, but they still did get a homer from first baseman Kent Schmidt in the 6th inning to tie the game at 1-1, the only ball that beat the wind coming in from the east towards the third base line.

“[Old Dominion] hit balls kind of hard that on a different day, you know, might have had a different result,” noted Hall of the wind coming in the stadium. Old Dominion had multiple fly balls that were encroaching the warning track tonight that like Hall insinuated, may have gone out otherwise.

Tech’s second run scored in the seventh inning via consecutive sacrifice bunts by Will Baker and Carson Kerce, Kerce’s scoring Alex Hernandez after he had reached base with a double.

Up a run, Ballard allowed two straight singles, the second being impressively cut off early in left field by Hernandez to avoid the lead runner to reach third base. The next batter, Efrain Morales, hit a squibbler double down the right field line, tying the game at 2-2 with runners at second and third with no outs.

Enter, Jaylen Paden, a graduate student transfer from Georgia Southern making his first appearance on the mound since March 2023 after missing all of 2024 with injury.

“I was nervous, but I mean, man, that was electric to get back out there for those guys,” said Paden.

Paden struck out the first man he faced, helped in a rundown to tag the runner at third during the second batter, and struck out the third batter he faced in the 8th to maintain a 2-2 tie to the bottom of the inning.

There, Tech again went small ball, having Parker Brosius move Drew Burress and Schmidt to second and third after they both had walked. Nathan Waugh brought in Burress on a failed fielder’s choice to take the 3-2 lead, which Paden made final with a stellar 9th inning (two strikeouts).

Nathan Waugh’s sixth inning walk extended his on-base streak to 43 games, which dates back to the 2023 season (he reached base in all 38 games he played for Cornell last season).

Assuming no rain messes with the schedule, Brady Jones is scheduled to start game two of the series on Saturday. Riley Stanford is slated for Sunday.