Georgia Baseball headed to Chapel Hill Regional for NCAA Tournament

Georgia Baseball is headed to the NCAA Tournament. After missing the postseason last year and having their chance at Omaha in 2020 ripped away with COVID, the Bulldogs are back in the big dance for the first time since 2019. That year – as well as 2018 – they hosted a regional at Foley Field in Athens. This time, they’ll be hitting the road to Chapel Hill.

Joining Georgia in the Tar Heel State is host North Carolina, seeded No. 1 in the group of four and No. 10 overall. The Tar Heels will play fourth-seeded Hofstra. Meanwhile, Scott Stricklin’s squad is set for a date against VCU, the No. 3 seed, on Friday. Times and TV channels will be released later today.

The winner of the Chapel Hill Regional will play the winner of Oklahoma State’s Stillwater Regional in the Super Regional Round with a spot in the College World Series on the line.

Georgia enters the postseason at 35-21 overall, but it’d be a stretch to say that the Bulldogs are playing their best baseball right now. Granted, the schedule got tougher on them late in the season, but they’ve dropped nine of their last 15 games including four straight series and the opening game at the SEC Tournament last week in Hoover. In order to advance out of the regionals for the first time since 2008, when the Bulldogs made it all the way to the championship series in Omaha, they’ll have to win three of four games – or three in a row – which they haven’t done in over a month.

On the Mound

Part of that process in trying to advance will be deciding how to best employ the pitching. Is ace starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon going to be necessary in Game One, or do you save him for Game Two – either a chance to get to the regional championship or a win-or-go-home scenario in the losers bracket? Cannon was named to the First-Team All-SEC squad with a 9-3 record on the season in 12 starts. Twice this year has he gone at least 8.0 innings without allowing a run. He also had a start coming off of injury where he was on a pitch count but threw 5.0 innings of perfect baseball before coming out of the game. There’s no doubt that having Cannon on the mound gives Georgia the best chance of winning any given game.

Around him, the pitching staff has been shaky. Jaden Woods and Jack Gowen offer the two best options out of the bullpen, each making a team-high 24 appearances on the season, while freshman Chandler Marsh has made 23 appearances with a lower ERA than Woods. Luke Wagner, who can also start if necessary, has thrown the most innings out of the bullpen options behind Woods with 38.1. Those four all threw on Tuesday against Alabama in the SEC Tournament with Marsh, Woods and Gowen combining for 7.2 innings of two-hit scoreless baseball after Wagner struggled early.

Don’t forget about Liam Sullivan too, Georgia’s only other true starter outside of Cannon with Dylan Ross and Will Childers going down early and Nolan Crisp suffering a season-ending injury in the final series of the season against Missouri. Woods and Wagner have started in spots when necessary while Coleman Willis has gotten the midweek starts as of late. Any one of them – along with Hank Bearden, Garrett Brown or Bryce Melear – could get the nod from Stricklin to start an important outing in the regional with only two true starters and more games than that to win.

At the Plate

Georgia’s strength this season has been on offense where the Bulldogs are averaging 7.0 runs per game. Connor Tate leads the team in batting average (.341), hits (72), RBIs (55) and is tied for the team-high in home runs with 12. His twin, Cole, is actually ahead of him in batting average at .353, but does not meet the minimum requirement of 75% of games played. Meanwhile, Parks Harber isn’t far off of the Tates with an average of .307, 62 hits and 49 RBIs, all second-best among qualifying players. He is tied with Connor for the team-high in home runs with 12.

Ben Anderson, Chaney Rogers, Josh McAllister, Corey Collins and Cory Acton make up the rest of the regular lineup. Anderson and Rogers are both hitting .278 with more than 30 RBIs, while Collins is one off of the team-lead in home runs with 11 to his name. Fernando Gonzalez is in there more often than not at catcher, starting about two of every three with Collins getting the third start. When he’s not in the lineup and Collins is in at catcher, Cole Wagner, Buddy Floyd, Dwight Allen and Garrett Spikes have all made starting appearances. Garrett Blaylock provided some starts, but like Nolan Crisp mentioned above, he too has been lost for the season due to injury.

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