After its 14-inning win over Georgia, Georgia Tech arrives at its final regular-season series in search of a strong finish. The Yellow Jackets, who play North Carolina at home for a three-game series beginning Thursday (7 p.m., ACC Network Extra), will try to protect their lead in the ACC’s Coastal Division.
Winning the Coastal would ensure that Tech would have the second seed for the conference tournament that begins Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C. Notre Dame, picked to finish last in the Atlantic, has clinched its first-ever Atlantic title and the top seed in the tournament. The Jackets are 19-14 in the league, with second-place Pitt (16-14), third-place Miami (17-15) and fourth-place North Carolina (17-16) still in contention.
Tech can secure its third Coastal title by winning two of three this weekend. If the Jackets won only one of three from UNC, it would still be possible to win the Coastal, but they would need help. Losing all three games would eliminate the Jackets from contention. Pitt plays at Wake Forest and Miami is at Louisville.
Tech coach Danny Hall was counting on the win over Georgia, in which the Jackets trailed 6-3 going into the bottom of the eighth before winning in the 14th on a run-scoring sacrifice fly by Justyn-Henry Malloy, would give Tech momentum going into the UNC series.
The tournament field will be arranged into four three-team pools (only the league’s top 12 teams make the tournament). The remainder of the teams will be seeded by winning percentage.
Further, positioning for the NCAA Tournament continues. In D1Baseball’s latest tournament projection, released Tuesday (prior to the win over Georgia), Tech was a No. 2 seed in a regional at Mississippi. Winning the Coastal would augment the Jackets’ case for a No. 1 seed, to say nothing of a strong showing at the ACC Tournament. Tech can’t be a regional host as a No. 1 seed, as the NCAA has predetermined 20 potential host sites as a COVID-19 precaution, but being a top seed would greatly improve the Jackets’ chances of advancing out of the regional round for the first time since 2006.
“Carolina’s coming off a great weekend, and it’s our last ACC weekend with everything in front of us,” Hall said. “If we keep winning, nobody can catch us in our division. I think it would be great to win the Coastal and head into the ACC tournament with some momentum.”
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