Georgia baseball coach Wes Johnson is ready for his team to simply “play ball” without paying much mind to the Bulldogs’ surprisingly low No. 7 national seed.
“I told our guys, don’t get caught up with what seed we are and focus on we got a game here Friday against Binghamton,” said Johnson, whose team finished No. 2 in the national RPI rankings. “We’ve been fortunate enough to get a seed in the top eight, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Indeed, Georgia’s seed guarantees the Bulldogs will play when they host a four-team, double-elimination regional this week, and if successful, a best-of-three super regional (June 6-9).
UGA, which fell one game short of making the College World Series last season, is 28-4 at home this season.
Johnson said Georgia isn’t about to “get caught up in all that noise” about where his team was seeded or who the Bulldogs were assigned to play.
“You get caught up in all that noise,” Johnson said, “that’s how you don’t make it out.”
Georgia (42-15) opens against America East Conference tourney-champ Binghamton (29-24) at noon Friday (TV: SEC Network).
Duke (37-19) is the No. 2 regional seed and plays No. 3-seed Oklahoma State (28-23) at 6 p.m. Friday.
The losers of the games Friday will play an elimination game at 1 p.m. Saturday, with the Friday winners set to meet at 6 p.m. Saturday.
A UGA official said the Bulldogs requested the evening game Friday, but the NCAA and ESPN control the game-time designations.
The winner of the Georgia regional will face the winner of the Oxford (Mississippi) regional, which is hosted by national No. 10 seed Ole Miss and includes Georgia Tech.
Georgia did not face the Rebels this season, but Ole Miss is considered one of the hotter teams in the nation.
The Rebels took two of three from national No. 4 seed Auburn to close the regular season and in the SEC tourney beat Florida (3-1), Arkansas (5-2) and LSU (2-0) before losing to national No. 1 seed Vanderbilt in the title game (3-2) on Sunday.
Johnson has made it clear his focus is on his own team’s preparation, and what it will take to advance out of the Athens regional.
“We had a really good workout Saturday night, we threw all of our pitchers that didn’t throw in the SEC tournament.” Johnson said Monday. “... That was a good, long night, and yesterday we had a good (practice).
“(Monday) it will shorten up a bit, we won’t go quite as long, we’ll go two-and-a-half hours, and two-and-a-half hours (Tuesday) and slowly ramp it down.”
It’s a safe bet that by Friday the Bulldogs will be ramped up to compete, with a sellout crowd at Foley Field on hand, and the program’s goal of reaching its first College World Series since 2008 within reach.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
