Lady Dogs celebrate Senior Day in basketball

ATHENS — In case you missed any of it, there was a lot going on within Georgia athletics this weekend, most of it good.

There was a ton of activity on campus, with baseball, softball, men’s basketball and women’s basketball all hosting events. Also Georgia’s track teams, under the direction of first-year coach Caryl Smith Gilbert, were also in action at the SEC Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas.

Here’s what went down:

Georgia’s women’s basketball team celebrated Senior Day by defeating Texas A&M 67-58 in the regular-season finale at Stegeman Coliseum. Super senior Jenna Staiti played super as usual with 17 points and 10 rebounds. With the win, the No. 25-ranked Lady Bulldogs (20-8, 9-7 SEC) secured the No. 6 seed in this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville. After a first-round bye, Georgia will draw the winner of Alabama-Auburn on Thursday at 9 p.m. The Bulldogs beat Alabama and lost to Auburn during the season.
The No. 14-ranked Georgia baseball team swept Akron to remain undefeated on the young season. The Bulldogs (6-0) were supposed to play four games against the Zips, but Sunday’s finale was rained out. The first game was tougher than expected, but pitcher Jonathan Cannon carried a perfect game into the seventh inning and struck out five in 8 ⅓ innings on the way to a 1-0 win. Georgia won Saturday’s doubleheader 10-0 and 7-2. The going gets tougher this week as the Bulldogs travel to Greenville, S.C., on Tuesday to face Wofford (6 p.m.), then face Georgia Tech for a three-game set that will be played in Atlanta on Friday, Athens on Saturday and Lawrenceville on Sunday.
Georgia’s No. 15-ranked softball team had a perfect weekend, going 4-0 in its own Georgia Classic tournament and seeing freshman pitcher Kylie Macy throw a perfect game in the process. Macy’s fine work came against an overmatched opponent in Bryant College, which was run-ruled in five innings for an 18-0 loss. But she struck out 13 of the 15 batters she faced, including the first nine in a row. The Bulldogs also logged a pair of wins over North Carolina to win the tournament and improve to 14-2.
Georgia didn’t do as well as a team as it hoped at the SEC Indoor Championships, but it came home with a lot of individual hardware. Junior sprinter Matthew Boling led the way for the men as usual, coming away with the Commissioner’s Trophy as the top male scorer. He finished with 19.5 points, winning the 60-meter dash, getting second in the long jump and teaming with Caleb Cavanaugh, Bryce McCray and Elija Godwin to win 4x400-meter relay. The No. 4-ranked men’s team finished seventh overall. Junior Ana da Silva set a school record for the second meet in a row in the shot put, but it was only good enough to earn her a bronze medal. The women finished ninth.
Georgia’s ninth-ranked tennis team (6-3) plays Mercer on Monday at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex (2:30 p.m.). The teams were rained out Sunday. That will make for a short turnaround before the Bulldogs host No. 12 Texas at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in Athens. … After a tough finish to the indoor season, Georgia’s No. 25-ranked women’s tennis team opens SEC play this weekend, hosting Ole Miss on Friday and Mississippi State on Sunday.
The men’s basketball team is inching closer to a merciless end of a horrific season. With an 84-72 loss to Florida on Saturday, the Bulldogs fell to 1-15 in SEC play and 6-23 overall. They’ll host No. 13 Tennessee (21-7, 12-4 SEC) Tuesday night at 6:30 (SECN), then wrap up the regular season on the road at Missouri next Saturday (3:30 p.m., SECN). The last defeat assured Georgia of the last seed in the SEC Tournament in Tampa. The Bulldogs will face the 11 seed on March 9. At the moment, the opponent would be Vanderbilt (14-14, 6-10).

Next week promises to be just as action-packed as spring sports are now in full swing.

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