Athens — Rivals are supposed to wish ill on their foes, not want what that team has.

But Georgia Tech baseball coach Danny Hall covets, just a little bit, the situation Georgia's David Perno has heading into Friday's NCAA regional tournament.

"I wish I had his luxury where I felt like I had two number one [pitchers]," Hall said. "I am not sure I feel that way."

Instead Hall feels indecisive. The regional is a double-elimination tournament, which means a team could play as many as five games in four days. So, starting pitching is very important.

That's why Hall has some concerns. He said that staff ace David Duncan will go against Louisville at 7 p.m. Friday at Foley Field.

But Saturday's pitcher is to-be-announced. Ditto with Sunday and Monday.

"We told them, 'Four of you are not pitching on Friday the other four of you have to be ready on Saturday,' " Hall said.

But who? That is where the coach gets into a complicated series of what-if scenarios that leave most babbling incoherently. But here goes:

"A lot of factors go into it," Hall said. "Do we just want to win this game? Or if we have got a loss how do we stack our pitchers to try and win this tournament? If you lose you may not throw your number two guys because you are thinking I need to throw my three or four to win this game and use my two and three to try and stay in this thing.

"Then if you win it is who is the best matchup against the team we are playing? I don't think there is any easy answer but there is a lot of thought that goes into choosing that next starter for me."

This is pretty typical come tournament time for all teams. During the season the pitching rotation is usually set. There are a couple of midweek pitchers and three weekend guys. But now rotations have to be tweaked because if a team loses twice its season is over.

"The coaches, they come to you and talk to you about what they are thinking and how the rotation is going to set up," Duncan said. "Usually they have a pretty good idea about what they are doing and you have to trust them a little bit. If you feel adamant about something you have to step up and say something."

Those conversations did not take place at Georgia this year. Stephen Dodson will take the mound against Lipscomb today at 3 p.m.

The Dogs will go with Trevor Holder on Saturday. After that, they have two No. 3 pitchers in Nick Montgomery and Nathan Moreau.

"The big deal for us was making sure one of our aces go game one and we have got the other for game two," Perno said. "From that standpoint it wasn't real tricky for us to decide which way we were going to go in our rotation."

Not like 2004 when Georgia had a two-man rotation. Still, Georgia made the College World Series that year.

"Every staff is different," Duncan said. "And every year is different."

Of course there is this to remember as well:

"If you have your stuff it really doesn't matter who you are matching up against," Moreau said.