This is heartbreaking. Jody was such a good guy as anyone around the 2001 team will remember, but what really won the fans over was his family. They were truly wonderful people who really soaked in and gave plenty back to the unique flavor of a college baseball community.

We’re sure that Jody’s memory will take its rightful place in the Athens regional this weekend.

What a season. From midseason desperation just to qualify for the SEC Tournament to a national #7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Diamond Dawgs have given us a very enjoyable spring. Georgia worked hard to earn the right to host the regional, so I hope the stands are packed to reward the Dawgs with a good homefield advantage. “I wasn’t expecting us to see a national seed because they usually stiff us over every year,” said Joey Side in the ABH. That’s true, so let’s make the most of the opportunity to have the home field all the way to Omaha.

A few observations on the upcoming tournament:

• Georgia and Tech for once would not meet before the CWS. Both are national seeds (Tech received the #8 seed, rightfully after Georgia) and would host their own super regional if they advance to that stage. I have mixed feelings – it was very satisfying in 2001 and 2004 to send the annually overrated Yellow Jackets home.
• Florida State is the #2-seed in the Athens regional. The FSU program has a strong baseball tradition, and their visit to Athens in 2001 for the super regional was memorable. The raucous Georgia crowd caught FSU’s attention, and hopefully some of the same will be waiting for them this weekend.
• It’s easy to dismiss unknown programs like Sacred Heart and look ahead to sexier big-name opponents like FSU, but all Georgia has to do is look back to the beginning of their late-season winning streak and the loss to Western Carolina to know how much the name on the jersey is worth. All it takes is one hot pitcher to take control of a game, and most teams good enough to make the NCAA Tournament have that potential.
• Georgia won regionals in 2001 and 2004 by going through the loser’s bracket. Hopefully that won’t be necessary this year. The pitching staff was stretched very thin in the SEC Tournament, and it would be nice to do things the easy way for once.
• Georgia needs Mickey Westphal back. Dating back to the Auburn series, Westphal hasn’t fooled many batters and has caused Georgia to dip into the bullpen early. Much was made during the season of his injury-motivated transition from a power pitcher to finesse and location, and hopefully some unfamiliar opponents will help him recover some of that midseason success.
• I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed that Jonathan Wyatt had passed Joey Side in batting average by the end of the season. Wow. Just a few years ago, Wyatt was purely a defense and speed substitution, and any offense was gravy (making his legendary home run against Tech in 2004 that much more of a great story). Now he’s almost an even-money threat to get on base, and as a leadoff man that is pure gold.
• It’s also great to see Matt Dunn batting well. With Jason Jacobs on fire in the 6 spot, Peisel a consistently solid eigth batter, Dunn getting some hits makes the bottom of the order rather potent and turns Wyatt and Side into big RBI threats with their high averages.
• Speaking of Dunn, if Virginia and Georgia both win their respective regionals, Dunn’s Dawgs will play host to his former team in the super regional.

“This was as tough an environment as I’ve ever played in,” Seminoles coach Mike Martin said in 2001. “We ain’t ever coming back up here again.”

Wrong, Mike. We’ll see you this weekend.

It’s impossible to do justice to last night’s Diamond Dawg win. Down 4-0 after 1, down 8-2 soon after. Perno was ejected. Down 9-4 in the 7th. Looks like the streak was over, and there would be no shame in losing to a good Kentucky team that hammered Mickey Westphal. I should have known better. Josh Morris erupted for two home runs and a game-changing grand slam in the 7th. Bobby Felmy, for the second consecutive Thursday, drove in the winning run. Joshua Fields left no doubt and mowed down the Cats in order in the 9th. This isn’t even remotely the same team that we saw in April.

There were a couple of questionable late decisions from the Kentucky dugout that helped:

• Morris had a great day, and so Kentucky elected to intentionally walk him in the bottom of the eighth. By doing so, they loaded the bases and put the potential go-ahead run on second base. Sure enough, that runner on second scored the winning run on Bobby Felmy’s hit. Morris, even on his best days, is as likely to strike out as he is to hit one to Anderson, SC. Felmy is a steadier hitter and has a hitting streak of at least 11 games. While Kentucky might not have wanted to pitch to Morris, they could have at least made him look at some pitches to earn the walk – he doesn’t walk very often.
• In the 9th, Kentucky pinch-hitted for a player who had gone 2-3 with 3 RBI. The pinch-hitter struck out.

Had this happened earlier in the season, this game might be remembered as a turning point. Now, this weekend, it’s a huge blow in a season-ending fight for the division title. Yankees-Red Sox stuff. Incredibly fun.

Perno discussing the Will & Grace finale with an umpire

There’s a lot at stake in Georgia’s final regular season baseball series this weekend against Kentucky, and a lot of people don’t seem to know that the series will be Thursday-Saturday instead of the usual Friday-Sunday. The SEC Tournament begins next week, so games are moved up a day to allow Sunday as an extra day of rest for the teams.

Game times are also different: Thursday at 7:00 p.m., Friday at 6:00 p.m., and Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

With a sweep, Georgia wins the SEC East and has a chance at the overall SEC title. Win two of three, and Georgia will likely finish second in the East and 3rd overall in the conference. Not bad at all considering how they began SEC play. Kentucky is a tough team, and they produce a lot of offense with the long ball.

Whoever emerges as Georgia’s starting QB will quickly be thrown into the fire. Georgia’s second game at South Carolina will be a nationally-televised prime-time contest on ESPN at 7:45. As South Carolina and their fans are typically still high on preseason delusions until they lose to Georgia, it should be a wild environment.

As an aside, I’m thinking more and more that the Dawgs need a starting QB identified before the season opener. A nationally-televised night game in Columbia is no place to continue an audition, and the starter should get as much work in the Western Kentucky game as is necessary to have him ready for the conference opener.

As Toon Dawg on the DawgVent so well illustrates in these pictures, you’d want to play in the dark too if this were the scenic setting for your football program:

From consistent academic performance to outstanding on-the-field accomplishments to rock-solid financial standing, I’d say the Georgia athletics program is rolling along just fine, and the leadership transition from Vince Dooley to Damon Evans has been a success. It’s good to read that Evans is working on a contract extension. If he could budget some cash in the future for student-athlete Drivers Ed, the program just might be spotless.

From Theron Sapp to Jonathan Wyatt, there’s a list of Georgia players who can do no wrong in our eyes after making a single play that led to a win over Georgia Tech. Last night, Bobby Felmy added his name to that list. Felmy, who has struggled from the plate for most of his senior season, came through with a double in the 11th inning against Georgia Tech at Turner Field that allowed Gordon Beckham to score from first with the winning run.

The Dawgs picked themselves up after a devastating ninth inning where an error and a home run allowed Tech to tie the game. But Bulldog reliever Stephen Dodson came in and shut down the Tech offense for the next three innings.

Apart from the fireworks in the 9th and 11th innings, there were two earlier situations that you could point to as reasons why Georgia won.

In the top of the fourth inning, Tech loaded the bases with no outs. That wasn’t a good thing, but Adam McDaniel buckled down on the mound to hold Tech to just one run on a sacrifice fly. Georgia just had a huge shot in the arm with Josh Morris’s home run in the bottom of the third, and they were close to losing control of the game the next inning. Escaping the 4th and 5th with the lead was key.

Then there was the 7th inning. For as many fundamental breakdowns as you see in the college game, the Georgia half of the 7th was a textbook lesson in offensive execution. Ryan Piesel led off the inning with a hit to center field. Tech was slow to field the ball, and Peisel alertly turned that hit into a double. Matt Dunn followed with a very nice sacrifice bunt. Everyone expected it, Tech was playing for the bunt, and Dunn saw some very difficult pitches to bunt. But he laid one down the third base side in perfect position to advance Peisel to third. With a runner on third, one out, and decent speed on the bases and at bat, it was the perfect situation for a suicide squeeze. Perno called the play at the right time, Peisel was nearly to home plate when the pitch came, and all Wyatt had to do was make sure the ball was fair and on the ground. It was a perfectly-executed series of plays that gave Georgia a very important insurance run.

Though there weren’t many hits, there were still some noteable performances. Morris’s home run in the third tied Georgia’s career home run record. Beckham had an RBI single in the first, scored on Morris’s home run in the third, and turned a leadoff walk into the winning run in the 11th. The best was the pitching. The patchwork group of young and old lasting an inning here, two there, and finally Dodson’s solid three innings at the end kept a decent Tech lineup from doing much damage.

This was a fun one – the streak runs to eight games, the Dawgs win a season series over a Top 10 team, and Tech gets their hearts ripped out just when they thought they had grabbed control of the game in the ninth. In any sport, it never gets old.

Best of luck recruiting the state of South Carolina, but just remember one thing: if Mark Richt and the Georgia program really wants a prospect from South Carolina, Georgia will get him.

The latest is linebacker Charles White who stood out at the Athens NIKE camp and receiver an offer shortly afterwards. Following such standouts as Prince Miller and Clifton Geathers from last season, the Dawgs are again off to a good start towards having the cream of the crop from the Palmetto State.

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey has a look at a tie that binds Kade Weston, Knowshon Moreno, and Clifton Geathers. The MAC Testing, Inc. SAT prep center has worked with all of them to improve their SAT scores and hopefully get Moreno and Geathers qualified to enroll at Georgia and play football. The system was successful for Weston last year, and word seems to be getting out about the success Dr. Jean D’Arcy Maculaitis has had with her program.

It’s good that these guys have found what seems to be a legitimate system to improving their academic credentials, and sometimes some structure like this is exactly what’s been missing from their approach to schoolwork and the SAT. Still, you’d hope that kids with college aspirations, athletes or not, get this message earlier and realize how important it is to find this kind of struture and discipline before the last minute. For someone like Geathers who has had an uncle and a brother go through this process before en route to the NFL, it’s almost amazing that he’s just now getting this wake-up call.

Sweating the SAT and the NCAA’s minimum standards is not a very fun way to spend the last months of high school. “Oh, man, that was tough being inside all day like that,” Geathers said about spending his time cracking down on the SAT instead of enjoying the South Carolina springtime. Welcome to real life.

Georgia sweeping division-leading and twelfth-ranked South Carolina last weekend seemed about as likely as:

• Georgia winning a home SEC series this season
• Georgia scoring more than 4 runs in an SEC home game
• Matt Dunn and Jonathan Wyatt going deep to make sure Georgia had the early lead
• Sunday starting pitching up to the standards of Westphal and Brown
• Joshua Fields pitching in and closing out all three games

And it all happened. Sweep. Consecutive sweeps. Seven straight wins. How a team can pick itself up off the floor after losing a series to Tennessee and then a loss to Western Carolina and then reinvent itself this late into the season is beyond explanation. Is it the move of Wyatt to the leadoff spot? Westphal and Brown settling in to their respective starting slots? Whatever it is, the right buttons are being pushed now. The Diamond Dawgs are on the same kind of mid-season run that propelled them into the 2004 postseason and on to Omaha.

Georgia had never swept South Carolina before. In fact, the only seasons recently where Georgia could manage a win or two from the Gamecocks and avoid being swept themselves were 2001 and 2004 – and we know how those seasons ended up.

Next up is the rubber game with Georgia Tech at Turner Field on Wednesday. A win over Tech in Athens started this winning streak. Georgia’s bats came to life, and I don’t believe they’ve scored fewer than seven runs in a game since. It’s Tech. The Dawgs are hot. It’s at Turner Field. Proceeds benefit one of the best causes in Atlanta – Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Be there.

Huge series this weekend with South Carolina. The Gamecocks seem to have risen to the top of the tightly-packed SEC this year, and it will be a very challenging series. If Georgia can win the series, they’ll be over .500 in the league and in great position to make both the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. But to get there, they’ll have to overcome some bad trends. Georgia hasn’t won a home SEC series all year and are just 2-7 in home league games. South Carolina has also owned Georgia lately, sweeping them several times.

If the Dawgs are going to have success this weekend, it’s likely going to begin with the starting pitching. South Carolina has some potent bats, but Georgia has been excellent in Friday and Saturday starts recently. Westphal and Brown are the two most recent SEC Pitchers of the Week and have each thrown very well in the past two series. One bad rain-interrupted inning against Tennessee by Westphal is the only blemish. Sunday pitching has been a bit of a different story, and Perno will have to find an answer there. Westphal and Brown are going to have to go deep into their games, or it will be a very long weekend.

Offense has been a concern in SEC home games, and getting only three or at most four runs a game is a big reason for the 2-7 home SEC mark. Georgia’s bats have woken up lately, though. Offensive explosions against Georgia Tech and Florida came after a few changes to the batting order, and hopefully that can continue against a better pitching staff this weekend. Jonathan Wyatt has been on a tear since moving to the leadoff spot. Josh Morris is one home run away from tying Georgia’s career home run record.

UGASports.com caught up with Dennis Felton in Savannah on the Road Tour (subscription required). The emphasis was on the frontcourt, and Felton summed up the situation by saying, “We’re tired of being pushed around.” Georgia lacked not only depth but also physical presence. The Bulldogs will add 6’10” Albert Jackson and 6’8″ Takais Brown to the frontcourt, and both will be counted on for significant contributions. “Now, it’s gotten to where you’re not just relying on any one guy, you’ve got depth. You want to have depth to create competition and want to have it to be able to withstand significant injuries.”

He added that he was pleased with the progress made in the 2005-2006 season. Though the Dawgs faded down the stretch, an NCAA Tournament bid was a realistic possibility into February. “I was just proud to be in that position so late in the year,” said Felton.

Felton also mentioned the impact of the new practice facility currently under construction. “We’ve been able to hold it up as an example that once and for all, we are dead serious about building a good basketball program at Georgia. It’s a big step for our program and a big step for the University.” For pictures of the progress on the facility, Georgia Sports Blog has a fresh batch.

Marc Weiszer of the ABH reports that four undrafted Dawgs have signed free-agent contracts…

Bryan McClendon to Chicago (just like his dad!)
Dennis Roland to Dallas
Will Thompson to NY Jets
Russ Tanner to Indy

While the Georgia news on most people’s mind this weekend will be the NFL Draft, it’s a very significant weekend for one of the University’s other sports. Katrina McClain Johnson will become the first player or coach from the University inducted to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She definitely deserves the honor and finally gives the tradition-rich Georgia program a presence in the Hall of Fame.

Teresa Edwards only recently retired from competition and is not eligible for the Hall of Fame yet. That’s a sure thing. But it’s criminal that Andy Landers hasn’t been nominated yet. Wonder if it has anything to do with the Hall of Fame being in Knoxville.

Along with Dominique Wilkins heading to the Basketball Hall of Fame, this has been quite a year for some of Georgia’s past hoop greats.

The Diamond Dawgs needed a win in the worst way, and they got one against the best possible opponent on Wednesday. The Dawgs hung 10 runs in the first two innings on Georgia Tech and never looked back on the way to a 12-6 win. The offensive explosion was highlighted by a three-run home run by Josh Morris that landed somewhere near Ila, Ga. Things got interesting in the sixth, but Joey Side’s 794th amazing catch of the season ended the inning and a four-run Tech rally.

Though Tuesday’s loss to Western Carolina was a pretty rare bad loss for the team, a couple of wins over highly-ranked Clemson and Tech are huge when it comes time for NCAA Tournament selection. Now we have to go on the road against Florida, and it’s essential to make up some ground in the SEC standings.

I’m glad the rain held off for this game. Had it been rained out, it would have been the third time in four seasons that Tech hadn’t played a scheduled game in Athens.

May 10th – Turner Field. The deciding game in the season series. Proceeds go to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. There is no reason not to be there.