Athens — David Perno's mind isn't on Georgia Tech right now.

Well, at least not all of it.

"We have our sights on something bigger this weekend," the Georgia baseball coach said.

This weekend Georgia will play Vanderbilt and could clinch the SEC championship. But first the Bulldogs (31-15-1) play the Yellow Jackets (33-14) in a non-conference game at 7 tonight at Foley Field.

Both teams are in the midst of conference races. This brief interruption could affect where and how they play in the postseason.

Georgia ranks anywhere from No. 8 to No. 14 in the national polls. Collegiate Baseball ranks Tech No. 25. The Bulldogs are building their résumé for a top-eight national seed in the NCAA tournament, which brings with it the right to play at home in a regional and super regional. The Yellow Jackets are trying to earn the right to be one of the 16 regional hosts.

Perno is thrilled at the prospect of hosting one of the tournament's first two weekends, but he'd prefer not to have to face Georgia Tech for a fourth time this season.

"Hopefully they don't stick us in the same region and don't force us to play them in a super regional," Perno said. "We both hosted [super regionals] in 2006, and we both showed what we could do."

That year Georgia and Georgia Tech made it through to the College World Series. The three times both teams made it to the postseason before 2006 — 2001, 2002 and 2004 — they met in either the regional or the super regional. Twice Georgia knocked off Tech.

TECH AT GEORGIA

• When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

• TV; radio: CSS; 91.1 FM

"If the premise is to get the best team to Omaha, then they should seed the thing like they do with college basketball," Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall said. "For us to have to try and beat Georgia or for Georgia to beat us, I don't think that is fair not after what we have been through in the regular season."

Hall said many times the NCAA puts teams in the same geographical area to help ease travel costs.

Larry Templeton, chair of the NCAA selection committee, said Georgia and Georgia Tech are not the only teams with those issues. He pointed out that Southern Mississippi was in the Ole Miss regional last year. Those teams met three times in the regular season.

But Southern Mississippi plays in Conference USA, a top-heavy league. Tech and Georgia play in more balanced and better leagues, which is the genesis of Hall's argument.

"It's frustrating," Perno said.

It may be more of the same this postseason.

"The selection committee does look at past situations, but that does not go back in perpetuity," NCAA selection committee member Michael Cross said.

In other words, the committee will take a look at 2006 but maybe not 2001, 2002 and 2004.

This year it comes down to too many teams and too few places.

"You may not have a lot of options unless you ship one of them across the country, and I don't think they are going to like that either," Cross said.

The committee has to take into account that teams from the same conference cannot be in the same regional, which is why Baseball America projects that the Georgia regional will have Tech, College of Charleston and Jacksonville State.

"When you have two conferences like the ACC and the SEC and the number of bids those conferences are going to get, somebody has got to play somebody," Cross said. "There are a glut of schools in the Southeast all trying to do their thing."

Notes: Georgia second baseman Michael Demperio sustained a season-ending knee injury Sunday. The sophomore collided with Ole Miss' Matt Smith while trying to beat out a ground ball. His leg was trapped under him during the collision, and his ACL was torn.

Demperio started all 47 games this season at second base, fielding .963 and batting .238 with two home runs, 16 RBIs, nine sacrifice bunts and six stolen bases.

Junior Matt Starr or sophomore David Thoms will take over at second base.