While it’s serious news that Jeremy Lomax was arrested on speeding and concealed weapons charges, it is encouraging to see him step up and accept his fault in the incident.

Most fans assume a suspension, but alcohol-related incidents are the only ones for which a suspension is mandated. Depending on Mark Richt’s discretion and the eventual outcome of the charges, Lomax’s discipline could range anywhere from a multiple-game suspension to “internal” discipline such as additional running.

This tidbit is also encouraging: when potential starters are driving 1991 Chevy Caprices around town, you can be pretty certain that the NCAA won’t be moving their Tuscaloosa branch office to Athens any time soon.

Georgia will welcome Raleigh Regional winner North Carolina State to Athens this weekend for a best two-of-three series for the right to advance to Omaha and the College World Series.  Here’s the schedule; some warm afternoon games are ahead.

Athens Super Regional Schedule

Friday – Noon on ESPN
Saturday – Noon on ESPN2
Sunday – 4 p.m. (if necessary) on ESPN

Ticket Information

All-Session tickets to attend the NCAA Baseball Athens Super Regional, featuring Georgia and North Carolina State, will go on sale online via www.georgiadogs.com, at the Athletic Association Ticket Office window or by calling 1-877-542-1231 (toll free) beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 3.

All-Session Reserved tickets are $40 with the all-session general admission price set at $30. Both All-Session ticket packages include a ticket to all Athens Super Regional games including Game 3 if necessary and provide fans with a discount off the individual game ticket prices.

All tickets ordered for the Super Regional will be distributed via Will-Call. Patrons may claim their tickets prior to the regional from the Athletic Association Ticket Office beginning on Thursday, June 5 at 9:00 a.m. Regional tickets will also be available for pickup at the Foley Field ticket windows each day of the Super Regional.

For more information, visit www.georgiadogs.com and click on the link for tickets or call the Ticket Office at 1-877-542-1231. Visa, Mastercard and Cash are all accepted forms of payment.

“Can anybody f#@*ing play out here?”
– Danny Hall, during Monday’s 7th inning mound visit

Thoroughly unimpressed with the accomplishment of the Georgia basketball team, the Georgia baseball team demonstrated this weekend just how easy it is to win 4 games in 3 days.  Georgia completed the comeback by winning four straight games through the loser’s bracket, and they finished off Georgia Tech 18-6 in Monday night’s regional championship game.  Georgia’s hot bats were aided by six Tech errors, and Bulldog pitching allowed just one run after surrendering five to the Yellow Jackets in the bottom of the first inning.

With a loss already against them and drifting dead in the water against Louisville, the Diamond Dawgs shed a May malaise with one swing of Gordon Beckham’s bat.  In the 30 innings since that pivotal 7th inning against Louisville, Georgia has scored 47 runs.  They won the final three games of the regional by a combined 40-9 margin. 

Matt Olson had already cemented his place among the great Tech beaters, but the Athens Regional MVP one-upped himself with a freakish 18-26 (.692) batting performance over the weekend.  That total included seven hits over two elimination games against Georgia Tech.  It says something about Olson’s weekend that Bryce Massanari, in the middle of a 13-game hitting streak, was overshadowed.

As much as I can go on about the hitting, the story of the weekend had to be Georgia’s pitching depth coming through.  Regular starters Stephen Dodson and Trevor Holder struggled on Friday and Saturday.  Even reliable closer John Fields wasn’t himself on Saturday.  But beginning with Dean Weaver’s solid middle relief against Louisville, the pitching settled down.  Nathan Moreau and Justin Earls followed it up with strong showings against Lipscomb.  Nick Montgomery’s complete game shutout of Georgia Tech in Sunday’s nightcap was the outstanding performance of the regional. 

Montgomery’s outing on Sunday let Georgia get to Monday’s championship with plenty of arms on the bench, and they would need most of them.  Starter Justin Grimm failed to record an out during a disastrous first inning that saw Tech turn a 3-0 deficit into a 5-3 lead.  Alex McRee quickly settled things down, and he would hold Tech at bay allowing just a single unearned run in the 4th.  Weaver was brought in for the 5th, but he took a wicked shot off his pitching arm and had to leave the game after facing just one batter.  His condition and availability for the rest of the season is unknown. 

With Weaver out the Dawgs turned to Will Harvil, and Harvil became the latest Bulldog to make the most of his opportunity. Harvil allowed no runs and just three hits over four innings while the Bulldog offense built its lead.  Josh Fields finished the job in the 9th, but the issue was no longer in doubt then.  After the first inning it looked as if we were in for a high-scoring shootout, but Georgia’s middle relief of McRee and Harvil made sure that the scoring was one-sided.

Naturally a win like this over Georgia’s rival carries added significance.  The season series, led by Tech after the regular season, now finishes 3-2 in Georgia’s favor.  It’s the third time this decade that Georgia has ended Tech’s postseason.  Even bigger, the Dawgs are now 15-0 in elimination games at Foley Field. 

With another emotional regional and a draining march of five games in four days, Georgia will have to come back to earth quickly.  N.C. State will be coming to Athens for the Super Regional this weekend, and they are as good as any team Georgia faced during the regional.  The Wolfpack were 18-11 in the nation’s toughest conference, and they are 41-20 overall.  N.C. State swept through their Raleigh Regional with a 3-0 record and eliminated South Carolina to advance to the Super Regional.

I guess you take your motivation where you can get it, but this fashion-based incentive used by the Lipscomb baseball team would make Billy Johnson proud:

White shoes theory: One of the questions from the media at the post-game press conference dealt with the Bisons white baseball shoes. It marked the first time the team had ever worn white shoes in a game, but it won’t be the last.

“Our players wanted to wear white shoes all year long,” Forehand said. “I told them I didn’t like white shoes and we weren’t going to do it.

“It started last year. I made a promise that if they made it to a regional they could wear white shoes. I guess we are going to keep wearing them.”

It worked – the Bisons upset top-seeded Georgia 10-7 in the opening game of yesterday’s Athens regional.

Official footwear supplier of Lipscomb baseball

The Athens regional kicks off today with Georgia playing Lipscomb at 3:00. It should be a wild weekend: three of the four teams made the trip to Omaha in their last postseason appearance. Here’s a link dump of news and info:

Media

Television: CSS

Radio: 960 AM in Athens. 91.1 PM in Atlanta will have at least the Tech broadcast.

Online: Free audio and live stats here.

News

• GeorgiaDogs.com Regional Central
• AJC regional notebook: Dawgs rested, healthy, and haven’t scouted anyone
• ABH: Four teams, one dream. A brief profile of the participants.
• ABH: Regional notebook. Roger Willams’ return, Fields and Beckham honored, Tech dealing with tragedy
• ABH: A great look back at the 2001, 2004, and 2006 postseasons with quotes from some of the players.

Tickets

Single game tickets to attend the NCAA Baseball Athens Regional will go on sale starting at 1:00 p.m. Friday, May 30 at Foley Field. Single game ticket sales locations will be set up in the Foley Field Plaza, along the third base side on Rutherford Street and at the entrance to right field bleachers on Pinecrest Street.

Reserved Seat tickets are $12 and general admission tickets are $10.

Single game tickets will also go on sale at the Foley Field ticket locations beginning two hours before the first game each day.

Good news for those unable to make it to Athens for this weekend’s baseball regional. CSS has added coverage to their lineup, and they will broadcast all games through Monday (if necessary).

Derrick Favors is the top target of Georgia and most every other school for the 2009 basketball recruiting class. Even among some of the better players in the nation Favors stood out over the weekend at the Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions.

Favors controlled the boards, blocked shots, pounded dunks, drove, hit short jumpers and ran the floor like few 225-pound big men in the world.

“He is at a different level,” (Dave) Telep said. “There are other elite players, but he is something special…There was some separation between him and all the other guys.”

Despite losing four out of five games coming into the NCAA Tournament, Georgia’s regular season SEC championship was enough to earn Georgia the final national seed when bids were announced Monday afternoon.  Georgia will host a regional in Athens this weekend and, if they advance, will host a Super Regional on the subsequent weekend.

The Athens Regional

The good news – home field has been kind to Georgia in the postseason recently. Georgia hasn’t lost a postseason series in Athens in the 2000s though there have been several close calls.  The bad news – it’s a strong field.  Georgia won the SEC title.  Georgia Tech was a strong contender to host a regional.  Louisville won the Big East and made the trip to Omaha in 2007.

1. Georgia
2. Georgia Tech
3. Louisville
4. Lipscomb

The Lipscomb Bisons, champions of the Atlantic Sun conference, will be making their NCAA Tournament debut against the Bulldogs.  The Bisons have played three games against SEC competition (Vanderbilt(2) and Alabama), losing all three games.

Georgia Tech hoped to host a regional, but they finished just over .500 in a tough ACC which produced three of the top four national seeds.  Instead the Yellow Jackets will have to go through Athens if they hope to advance.  Tech took the season series from Georgia, but Georgia had the final word with a close win at Turner Field earlier in May. 

Georgia and Georgia Tech have done battle several times this decade during the postseason.  In 2001, the Bulldogs eliminated Tech in the Athens regional en route to the College World Series.  Tech returned the favor in 2002 by ending Georgia’s season in Atlanta.  The two teams met again in 2004 with a trip to the College World Series on the line.  Georgia swept two games from their rivals to take the Super Regional series and return to Omaha.  Jonathan Wyatt became a Bulldog legend with a decisive 2-run homer to clinch the series.

There’s even a connection with Louisville.  Former Bulldog pitching coach Roger Williams now holds the same position for the Cardinals, and some scuttlebutt holds that his departure from Athens was on less-than-pleasant terms.

The SEC

Though no SEC team has been dominant this year, the depth of the conference was evident when the NCAA bracket was announced.  The SEC has two national seeds (#7 LSU and #8 Georgia), and nine SEC teams received bids – including Arkansas who didn’t even qualify for the SEC Tournament.  Ole Miss, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Vanderbilt are the other invitees.

Of national interest

• How’d you like to be Arizona?  You earn the top seed in a regional, but you’re the only top seed sent on the road.  To Michigan.  In the interests of “geographical diversity.” 
• We’ll have a new national champion.  Two-time defending champs Oregon State were left out of the tournament.  They are the first defending champion to miss the tournament since….Georgia in 1991.
• As I mentioned above, the ACC has three of the top four national seeds.  Miami has been strong all year and won their first ACC title.  UNC has been the national runner-up in each of the past two seasons.  FSU is in the mix as always.

The schedule

Friday, May 30
Game 1: Georgia vs. Lipscomb, 3 p.m. ET
Game 2: Georgia Tech vs. Louisville, ~7 p.m. ET

Saturday, May 31
Game 3: Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 3 p.m. ET
Game 4: Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2, 7 p.m. ET

Sunday, June 1
Game 5: Loser of Game 4 vs. Winner of Game 3, 2 p.m. ET
Game 6: Winner of Game 4 vs. Winner of Game 5, 6 p.m. ET

Monday, June 2 (If Necessary)
Game 7: Winner of Game 6 vs. Loser of Game 6, 7 p.m. ET

Ticket information

All-Session ticket will be available online starting Monday, May 26 at 2 p.m. and at the Athletic Association Ticket Office window or by calling 1-877-542-1231 (toll free) beginning Tuesday, May 27 at 8:30 a.m.

All-Session Reserved tickets are $60 with the all-session general admission price set at $50. Both All-Session ticket packages include a ticket to all Athens Regional games including Game 7 if necessary and provides fans with a discount off the individual game ticket prices.

All tickets ordered for the regional will be distributed via Will- Call. Patrons may claim their tickets prior to the regional from the Athletic Association Ticket Office on Thursday, May 29, between 9am and 4pm and again on Friday, May 30, from 8:30am until noon. Regional tickets will also be available for pickup at the Foley Field ticket windows beginning at 1pm on Friday, May 30.

For more information, visit www.georgiadogs.com and click on the link for tickets or call the Ticket Office at 1-877-542-1231. Visa, Mastercard and Cash are all accepted forms of payment.

The night didn’t start well for the defending champions, but Georgia’s depth and experience shone through as the Tennis Dawgs came back to beat Texas 4-2 in the national championship Tuesday evening in Tulsa. The title was Georgia’s first at a host site other than Athens, and it’s the first back-to-back titles in the program’s storied history.

For the second straight round, Georgia dropped the doubles point. They also dropped the first singles match at #6. Facing a 2-0 hole, Georgia quickly bounced back with wins at #2 and #4 to level things at 2-2. From that point Georgia’s seniors took over to sustain the momentum and clinch the title. Luis Flores wrapped up his match at #3 without much drama to give Georgia the 3-2 edge.

The championship came down to #1 singles where former Longhorn Travis Helgeson had dropped the first set and was down a break at 1-2 in the decisive third set. Helgeson battled back, won four of the next five games, and broke his opponent twice to go up 5-3. As soon as Flores’ match ended, attention shift to Helgeson up 5-4 and serving for the win. He closed out Dimitar Kutrovsky 6-4, and the celebration was on.

The Dawgs were ranked high all year, and they had a ton of talent, so it’s not like this title came from out of nowhere. Still, Georgia was hardly the odds-on favorite after losing players like John Isner and Matic Omerzel. The favorite doesn’t always win: a heavily-favored Georgia fell to Pepperdine in 2006, and the Dawgs dispatched this year’s top-ranked team, Virginia. Georgia got key performances from its most experienced players, and the team’s depth helped them weather some midseason injuries and win important singles points further down the lineup. In the end, the black did it again.

Georgia’s championship will be re-aired on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m on Thursday May 22.

Travis Helgeson in his decisive match. Photo: AP

It seems silly to call a win by the defending national champion an “upset”, but what else is there? When the other team has been #1 all season and entered the tournament undefeated, an upset it is. The Bulldogs upset top-ranked Virginia 4-3 on Monday evening to advance to Tuesday’s national title against Texas in Tulsa, Okla.

The “middle of the lineup” came through for Georgia in the semifinals. The Dawgs dropped the doubles point to the nation’s top-rated doubles team but then got singles wins at #3, #2 and #5 to surge ahead. Virginia soon evened things up with wins at #1 and #6, but Jamie Hunt came from a set down at #4 to give Georgia the decisive win.

Georgia now finds themselves back in the position of the favorite as they prepare to defend their national title. The Dawgs beat Texas 4-2 in an indoor match back in February, but a lot can change in three months.

The rematch presents a couple of interesting storylines. First, there’s the opportunity to win back-to back titles. Though Georgia has five team NCAA titles to its credit (four outdoor, one indoor), they have yet to defend a title. Second is the doubles point. Texas has won that key point in its last six matches, but they dropped the doubles point in the earlier meeting with Georgia. The Dawgs showed against Virginia that losing the doubles point isn’t necessarily a death sentence, but it does leave very little margin for error in singles play.

The biggest storyline for the championship is the Texas connection to the Georgia program. Georgia #1 singles Travis Helgeson played at Texas before transferring to Georgia, and there does seem to be some bad blood or at least bitterness left over. Helgeson isn’t the first high-profile UGA transfer from Texas; Antonio Ruiz made the move in 2004. Ruiz went on to win the NCAA doubles championship with John Isner. Georgia’s Jamie Hunt, who clinched the Virginia match, is a Texas native.

The Dawgs and Longhorns will play for all the marbles Tuesday night at 7:00 on ESPNU.

Spring sports are wrapping up, and as usual the Dawgs are right in the thick of things.

• “Georgia junior Justin Gaymon clocked the world’s third-fastest time to win his second straight 400-meter hurdles title during the final day of the SEC Outdoor Championships in Auburn, Ala., on Sunday.”
• The men’s golf team “made a statement” with their convincing win at the NCAA Men’s East Regional.
• The tennis Dawgs swept Ole Miss to advance to the NCAA semifinals. Top-ranked Virgina awaits in a rematch of last year’s national semifinal.
• Georgia softball won the NCAA’s Chapel Hill Regional and will advance to a Super Regional later this month.
• Last, but not least, the baseball team opens postseason play at the SEC Tournament this Wednesday as the SEC champion and #1 seed despite dropping two of three to Alabama in the final series of the regular season.

The Cincinnati Bengals stuck with Odell Thurman through two years of suspension, but they released him on Monday. The Bengals claim that “Thurman has not fulfilled his expectations since being reinstated April 21, ” adding that “indications are that the Bengals weren’t pleased with his attendance in the offseason workout program that also includes the installation of a new defense with a new linebackers coach.”

A representative for Thurman questioned the timing of the release, noting that he had been back in Monticello, Ga. with his family after his grandmother’s recent passing.

Thurman had a “brief and tantalizing career” in Cincinnati as the Bengals’ site put it, but we wonder if any other team will take a chance on a promising player with a troubled history. Dallas, anyone?

Ryuji Imada was part of a national title for Georgia golf back in 1999. Bulldog coach Chris Haack went so far as to say, “He did for Georgia golf what Herschel Walker did for Georgia football.”

Now Imada has picked up his first professional win, and it came just down the road this weekend at Sugarloaf. He just missed winning this event last year, but it was his turn to win on the first playoff hole this year. The win qualifies him to play in another tournament in Georgia in 2009 – the Masters.

While we wait for the Diamond Dawgs to get going in their doubleheader this afternoon, the ABH looks ahead a bit to next week’s SEC baseball tournament in Hoover, Ala. Only eight teams make the double-elimination SEC Tournament each year, and reaching Hoover is often, though not always, a sign that a team is headed for the NCAA Tournament. Once there though, the tournament is about as meaningful as basketball’s preseason NIT.

As Coach Perno points out, an SEC Tournament title is the one accomplishment that has eluded the Georgia baseball program. Sure, it would be nice to win one. But with the NCAA Tournament starting up less than a week after things get wrapped up in Hoover, I won’t be too upset if the team and pitching staff isn’t extended all the way through the weekend.

Though the season series was already decided, the Diamond Dawgs got the final word in against Georgia Tech last night with a close 3-2 win at Turner Field in front of over 22,000. With postseason seeding at stake, Georgia prevented a sweep by the Yellow Jackets and won their fourth straight game over their rival at Turner Field.

Nick Montgomery’s shaky start led to an early 1-0 Tech lead, but he settled down in impressive fashion to give up only two hits over five innings. Georgia got solid pitching all night from the four hurlers they used, and they needed it. The Dawgs squandered several good scoring opportunities including a bases-loaded one out situation in the third inning, but the Georgia defense held. Two defensive gems, including a diving catch by Lyle Allen which knocked him out of the game, made ESPN’s top 10 plays for the night.

Joshua Fields now holds the Georgia single series save record by himself as his strong ninth inning earned him his 16th save. After looking a little wild against Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, he left no doubt against Tech.

Georgia now carries a three-game winning streak into this weekend’s series against Alabama. Because the SEC Tournament starts mid-week next week, this weekend’s action gets going on Thursday. Here are the game times:

• Thursday: 6:30 p.m.
• Friday: 6:30 p.m.
• Saturday: 2:00 p.m.

Georgia has already clinched the SEC title and the top seed in Hoover, but every win against Alabama will go towards ensuring a favorable seeding when the NCAA makes its selections in little less than two weeks. Head out to Foley to welcome the champions home and help them wrap up the regular season in impressive style.