Bulldogs' season comes to an end after a 9-0 loss to South Carolina in SEC Tournament
Bulldogs' season comes to an end after a 9-0 loss to South Carolina in SEC Tournament
Georgia baseball’s postseason hopes were hanging by a thread entering this year’s SEC Tournament, and they ended on Tuesday as South Carolina easily defeated the Bulldogs.
The Gamecocks dominated Georgia 9-0 in the first round of the tournament at the Hoover Met. The Bulldogs’ season then came to a “disappointing” end with a 29-27 overall record.
“You know what, when you look at it on paper, we had a bad year. That's the way I look at it,” Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin said after the loss. “This program has a lot of expectations, and it has a lot of pride and I didn't feel like we performed up to our expectations. And that's on me as the head coach. That's my responsibility. I take a lot of pride in trying to uphold that expectation here at Georgia, and this year we came up short.”
Despite Georgia having several wins against top-10 teams, it had as many bad losses as well. The Bulldogs also blew a lot of leads late in games, which led to more bad results.
Stricklin’s squad lost nine games when it was either tied or held a lead going into the final inning. The Bulldogs lost seven of those nine games while facing teams from the SEC.
Georgia also started out 1-9 in conference play but was able to end the year with an 11-19 record.
The Bulldogs did start gaining momentum before falling on their face late in the year, though.
“We had a good non-conference, had some good series there. Started off really slow in non-conference, but as a team, we never looked down,” Georgia pitcher Nolan Crisp said. “We just kept fighting throughout the entire season, everybody, top to bottom. We had guys step up on the pitching staff, guys that were struggling, lineup, you name it. But you had guys step up and nobody ever put their head down. And we just fought to the end. We made it here to Hoover today and gave ourselves a chance to keep playing.”
Georgia won home series against No. 25 Kentucky, No. 4 Arkansas and No. 13 Tennessee.
However, the Bulldogs had a few bad series outings on the road facing No. 19 Auburn (which was not ranked at the time), No. 8 Vanderbilt, No. 2 Florida, Missouri and Ole Miss.
Georgia barely qualified for the SEC Tournament in Hoover. Nevertheless, the Bulldogs won an important game against No. 5 LSU on Sunday, giving them the No. 11 seed.
Still, Georgia didn’t show up in its first-round elimination game against the No. 22 Gamecocks.
South Carolina hurler James Hicks was dominant in his effort. He pitched 6.2 innings of work and gave up four hits but zero runs. Hicks also struck out six and only walked two.
The Bulldogs started Jaden Woods, who hadn’t seen live-game action in over a month, Tuesday, but he only threw 31 pitches before taking out in the second inning with the bases loaded.
South Carolina’s then offense feasted off Georgia’s bullpen, which has been the team’s Achilles Heel all season. The Gamecocks plated seven total runs off of the Bulldogs’ relievers.
“I think the biggest thing that got us today was James [Hicks]. James was really good,” Stricklin said. “When that starting pitcher is locked in and throwing strikes like he did to our right-handers, staying on top of their hands all day long and it was a great day to pitch. The wind is blowing in, the park is playing big, so he was challenging guys with that fastball, and he's getting in there. He did a really good job with that [today].”
South Carolina jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning, and it plated three more in the fifth. The Gamecocks’ offense then added three more in the seventh and one in the eighth.
Georgia threatened several times with players on base, but could never bring one in to score. The Bulldogs left nine men on base, which was as many runs as South Carolina scored.
“We couldn't get the hit with runners in scoring position,” Stricklin said. “We had some opportunities to bring it closer, to get some momentum and we couldn't get that done.”
Stricklin has been the coach of Georgia for the past 10 years and it has missed the NCAA Tournament in seven of those seasons. The Bulldogs made it to the postseason three times under Stricklin — and hosted two NCAA Regionals in Athens — but never made it past the first weekend. Georgia’s best shot to make it to a Super Regional was in 2020 after starting out with a 14-4 record, but COVID-19 ended the season.
“Yeah, certainly a disappointing year,” Stricklin said. “We just didn't finish [our] games. When you look at our body of work, we had a lot of opportunities to finish off some games, and in this conference, you have to slam the door and get those three last outs in the ninth inning or the 10th inning or the 11th inning, whatever inning we were in.
“That was where we struggled. We struggled late. As Nolan said, I thought our kids fought hard. They never quit. They competed every single day. They did everything we asked them to do.”