University of Georgia Athletics
An Imperfect Ending For Dogs
May 16, 2015 | Baseball
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
ATHENS, Ga. -- The Georgia baseball team sat in the grass in shallow right field, the Bulldogs' eyes fixed on the SEC Network broadcast being shown on Foley Field's big scoreboard. All around them, "Have a Catch Saturday" was happening, with boys and girls throwing baseballs to one another in the outfield grass. It wasn't your everyday post-game scene.
Minutes before, Georgia's final regular season game had ended in an 8-1 loss to No. 20 Arkansas. Now, Tennessee and Mississippi State were playing in the ninth inning of their game in Knoxville. There was no more rapt audience for the game than the Bulldogs and their fans at Foley.
"We didn't want to be in this situation, where we're counting on another team that has nothing to play for," said Georgia senior catcher Brandon Stephens, who had a double and tagged a runner out at the plate Saturday.
It wasn't much later that the Dogs' season came to an end, right before their eyes. Tennessee scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to rally past Mississippi State, 3-2, and claim the final spot in next week's SEC Tournament. Georgia (26-28, 10-19 SEC) entered the weekend ahead of the Vols for the 12th spot, but Tennessee was able to sweep the other Bulldogs and Georgia lost two of three to the Hogs.
Georgia coach Scott Stricklin stood with his arms crossed near the Dogs' dugout as he watched the Vols go out in the bottom of the ninth and take that place in the SEC Tournament away from the Bulldogs, who lost their final two games of the season by a combined 17-1.
"We had an opportunity to get it done here at home and we needed help and it just didn't happen," Stricklin said, the disappointment showing on his face. "I feel terrible for our seniors and the kids have worked really hard, but it's just unfortunate we came up short and didn't get it done."
Georgia won just four of its last 12 SEC games to put itself right on the razor's edge of tournament eligibility. The final few weeks of the season were a microcosm of the whole: some good wins, some bad losses and a lot of unpredictability.
"We showed how good of a team we were, how capable we were, and we didn't bring that product out on the field every day," senior two-way player Jared Walsh said.
The season's final week started with a 6-0 win over Georgia Tech at Turner Field, holding a solid Yellow Jackets squad to only one hit, and the good play continued with Thursday's 10-1 thumping of the Hogs to open the series.
"Lots of ups and downs," Stricklin said of the season. "When we came here two years ago we talked about trying to be more consistent. That's the furthest thing from what we were. We weren't very consistent and it's going to be a long offseason."
After the good start to the final series, it was all Hogs. And the Dogs' tournament fate went from being in Georgia's control to contingent upon the goings-on in Knoxville.
"When you leave your fate in someone else's hands, you never know what's going to happen," Walsh said. "It was disappointing to say the least."
This Georgia season began with a bang: an 18-3 rout of Eastern Illinois on Feb. 13. Sophomore Mike Bell hit two home runs and drove in five Bulldogs (Bell finished with one homer and eight RBIs as a freshman), while Georgia produced 20 hits and five homers.
Not all days at the ballpark went so well. Significant injuries to key pitchers Robert Tyler and David Sosebee radically altered the Bulldogs' pitching staff. And at the plate the homers and hits with runners in scoring position didn't come often enough.
"We've gone through this whole year and we've never made excuses about the guys that weren't on the field for us," Stricklin said. "It is what it is and you have to deal with injuries and you have to overcome them. We didn't do a good job of overcoming the adversity that we had."
Georgia's five seniors recognized before the game Saturday were Stephens, Walsh and pitchers Jared Cheek, Taylor Hicks and Zach Waters. All five played in the season finale. Walsh, who got the win and two hits at the plate Tuesday, had a triple in the sixth inning and later scored Georgia's only run.
"I never would have thought I'd be hitting a triple in my final (game)," Walsh said. "My mom lets me know how slow I am every day, so I think a triple's pretty exciting. It didn't end the way I wanted it to, but if I'm looking at the positives I did have one good at-bat and scored a run."
As frustrating as this season was at times, Stricklin remains very optimistic about the future.
"We know that we have a very good group of kids coming in that are graduating high school right now. We know that the 2016 group (of commitments) that we have is a very good group," he said. "There's certainly reason for hope in this program and we knew when we came here that it wasn't going to happen overnight. It was going to take some time, but that still doesn't make it any easier to digest when you lose and you don't have the success that you want to have."
John Frierson is a staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. You can follow him on Twitter: @TheFrierson and @ITAHallofFame.
