Down key hitter Henry Allen, Georgia baseball looks to its depth
The day after left fielder Henry Allen suffered a knee injury and was ruled out for the season, you wouldn’t have been able to tell from his positive outlook.
“He was all smiles, just like in the locker room, saying what’s up to the guys, guys saying sorry about what happened. (He was) all smiles,” Rylan Lujo said. “I mean, he’s an absolute great kid. But we’re going to miss Henry a ton. He supplies a bunch of power … to this lineup, but we’re gonna have, we have guys to step up and do their jobs, too. …
“It just shows that he’s not a selfish person. And to be able to win and to go deep into this league and go to Omaha like we’re talking about, you can’t have selfish people on the team.”
The No. 5 Bulldogs (38-11 overall, 18-6 SEC) have a 2½-game lead in conference standings heading into this weekend’s matchup with LSU (29-21, 9-15), and will round out the regular season with a trip to No. 6 Auburn. A strong finish could give them their first SEC regular-season title since 2008 as they chase a trip to the College World Series.
They’ll have to do it without Allen, who made 42 starts in left field and was third on the team with 15 home runs, fourth in batting average (.321) and fifth in slugging percentage (.635) and RBIs (41). They’re losing some pop, but say they feel they’ve got players who can step up in his absence.
“It definitely shows off this team’s depth,” Lujo said.
The Bulldogs polished off the series against Missouri fine after losing Allen, claiming a 4-0 win last Friday before mercy-ruling the Tigers 13-3 Saturday and 14-4 Sunday.
Friday, they moved pitcher/outfielder Kenny Ishikawa from right field to left, with Ryan Black taking over in right field and Lujo in center field. Ishikawa suffered a foot injury in February, but the sophomore has hit .358 on the season (playing in 30 games, making 27 starts) with a .488 on-base percentage. He started in left field for the rest of the Missouri series.
“It’s a big blow, right?” Georgia coach Wes Johnson said of losing Allen. “He’s a good player, he’s hitting over .300, he’s got double-digit homers, and now you look at him, you go, do you have that on the bench replacing him? Well, no, you don’t, but you do have this, right? You’ve got Kenny Ishikawa, who’s coming back, and, you know, the timing of it is a little ironic. I think Kenny is getting back to where he was before he broke his foot.
“And, you know, obviously Kenny doesn’t have Henry’s power, but his batting average, he’s got a chance to hit for a really, really high average. And so, you know, we’ll take that. … We’ll take the trade-off of Kenny getting on base, and we just need the other guys to keep hitting homers.”
Georgia leads the country in home runs by a significant margin, with 131 (followed by Oklahoma State with 111, Mercer with 102 and Vanderbilt with 100).
The Bulldogs have five players who have hit double-digit home runs: Daniel Jackson (23), Tre Phelps (17), Brennan Hudson (16), Michael O’Shaughnessy (15) and Kolby Branch (15). Lujo and Black have hit seven each.
Johnson also highlighted players making the most of their opportunities, from Bryce Calloway, who played first base in Sunday’s win and hit a home run, to Ryan Wynn at second base, who combined to go 6-for-8 on Saturday and Sunday. That gives the Bulldogs a boost, too.
“Bryce Calloway gets in, hits a home run Sunday. Ryan Wynn, we obviously know what kind of weekend he had,” Johnson said. “And then Kenny, and so you look at, how are we going to, you know, fill the void of Henry? We’re going to do it with multiple players getting, you know, opportunities based on matchups.”
About the Author
Sarah Spencer, a Georgia native and UGA alum, serves as a general assignment and features writer for sports. She previously covered the Hawks from 2019-22.
