Georgia Tech, after a one-year hiatus, made good on its promise to return to the NCAA Baseball Tournament in 2024. But the Yellow Jackets still fell short of ending a now 18-year drought of advancing to the Round of 16.
Tech’s 8-6 loss at Georgia in 10 innings at Foley Field in the Athens Regional on Sunday eliminated the Jackets from the postseason. Coach Danny Hall’s program hasn’t made a Super Regional since 2006, when that team advanced all the way to the College World Series, and has now finished in second place at a regional 10 times since 2007.
“I think we made a lot of progress in just a lot of things this year,” Hall said Sunday. “I feel very confident. I have a tremendous staff and I can’t say it enough, I get a chance to work with just tremendous student-athletes on a daily basis and I’m confident that we’re going in the right direction. We gotta get better and we will get better.”
Hall’s comments came in the aftermath of the extra-innings loss to rival Georgia, a game in which Tech led 5-2 after four innings and 5-4 going into the ninth needing three outs to force a winner-take-all game Monday in Athens. But the Jackets gave up a game-tying homer in the ninth, left the bases loaded in the bottom half of the inning, allowed three unearned runs in the top of the 10th and pushed across just a single run in the bottom of the 10th despite having a bases loaded, no-out scenario.
That left Tech with a 33-25 season and extended one of the ACC’s longest droughts without a Super Regional appearance (only Pittsburgh, which has never been to a Super Regional, has a longer spell without reaching that stage of the NCAA Tournament).
The Jackets had missed the 2023 NCAA Tournament, their fourth absence from the postseason in eight years (there was no 2020 tournament). Hall publicly vowed in the offseason he would make a myriad of changes that he felt were needed to get Tech back into the field of 64.
The veteran skipper brought in Indiana transfer Matthew Ellis to catch and DH, former Georgia State standout Cam Jones to pitch and play outfield and North Carolina State transfer Payton Green and Fairfield transfer Mike Becchetti to man the middle infield, among others. Tech also got freshman phenom Drew Burress to campus and he all he did was hit 25 homers and knock in 67 runs. Those players helped the Jackets win 31 games and six series against ACC opponents which put Tech in the discussion to ultimately make the NCAA Tournament.
Hall also brought in pitching coach Matt Taylor, but Tech’s staff had one of the league’s worst ERAs (6.48), gave up nearly 10 hits per game and finished with a WHIP of 1.61 which ranked 11th among ACC teams. Tech didn’t have a single pitcher with an ERA under 4.00.
After 31 seasons and more than 1,200 wins at Tech, Hall now goes into the final year of his current contract that was signed April 1, 2022, and ends June 30, 2025. If Tech were to terminate that contract before July 1, Hall would receive 75% of his $510,000 base salary. If Tech were to terminate that contract after July 1, Hall would receive a 60% payout of his base salary.
“Certainly appreciate all of (Hall’s) leadership and all he has meant to Georgia Tech baseball and continues to mean to it,” Tech athletic director J Batt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “Like always, he and I will meet here soon for our end-of-season recap and we’ll look forward to next season.”
Even with Tech’s disappointing streak of failing to advance to a Super Regional living on for another year, it should be noted that Hall (now with 1,411 career wins over 37 seasons as a college coach), an American Baseball Coaches Association hall of famer, has led the Jackets to 23 NCAA Tournament appearances — Tech had been to nine regionals before Hall’s arrival in 1994. Hall needs just 17 wins in 2025 to enter the top 10 for all-time coaching wins in Division I.
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