The “Monday Morning Rewind” will be coming to you for the rest of spring semester. It’s designed to give you a recap of what happened with UGA athletics over the weekend and a look ahead at the coming week. Hope you find it useful.
Gritty.
That’s the best one-word description I can come up with for Georgia’s baseball team, which took two of three games from Tennessee up on Rocky Top this past weekend. The Bulldogs clinched the series with a 5-3 win on Sunday, thanks to a four-RBI afternoon from shortstop Kyle Farmer. They came close to pulling off the sweep but lost 5-4 Friday night in 10 innings.
The weekend was typical for the Bulldogs (21-20, 11-7 SEC) in that they played tight, hard-fought games that could have gone either way. In six SEC series so far the average margin per contest, win or lose, is 2.94 runs. They’ve won four of those series.
“We did it the hard way here, losing an extra-inning game on Friday and then coming back to win the series with good wins Saturday and today,” Georgia coach David Perno said in Knoxville. “Kyle had another big day for us and the bullpen was outstanding.”
Georgia relievers pitched seven shut-out innings.
Too bad Georgia doesn’t play in the Western Division. The Bulldogs would be leading that half of the league. Instead, they find themselves in fourth place in the East looking up at Florida, South Carolina and Vanderbilt, all 14-4 and all ranked in the Top 5 nationally.
That’s the bad news. The good news is the going should get a little easier. The Dogs play West teams each of the next two weekends, starting with Arkansas on Friday in Athens. The Razorbacks (28-11, 9-9) were ranked in the Top 25 recently but dropped two of three at Kentucky (19-22, 4-14) over the weekend. The Wildcats also remain on the schedule. Georgia will wrap up the season against top-ranked Vanderbilt May 19-21 in Athens.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs’ work is coming against the No. 1 schedule in the nation, hence a relatively lofty RPI of 21. UGA baseball SID Christopher Lakos was telling me Georgia has more wins over ranked teams (10) and has played more ranked opponents (23) than any SEC team.
Speaking of . . .
You can bet the Diamond Dogs won’t be looking past its midweek contest. They take on Georgia Tech on Tuesday night at Turner Field in the ninth annual “Spring Baseball Classic for Kids.” The ninth-ranked Yellow Jackets (30-11) will be looking to sweep the season series. Tech won 15-6 March 22 in Athens and 5-3 April 12 in Atlanta. Georgia is 6-2 against the Jackets at Turner Field.
The Spring Classic has raised more than $200,000 annually for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and its Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Program, according to UGA Sports Communications.
Perhaps they should have waited to give Georgia its trophy.
At least that’s my conclusion after seeing the storied men’s tennis team unceremoniously bounced by Kentucky in the SEC Tennis Tournament in Gainesville, Fla., over the weekend. The Bulldogs were presented their trophy for winning the regular-season championship — their 33rd, believe it or not — just before taking on the Wildcats. UK proceeded to wax the Dogs 4-0. Georgia also lost to Tennessee in the regular-season finale in Athens and therefore had to split the regular-season title with the Vols. So coach Diaz’s Dogs are kind of stumbling into the postseason. As are the Lady Dogs. No. 9 Georgia lost to No. 14 Tennessee 4-1 on Saturday, also in the semis of the SEC tourney.
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