Georgia Baseball: Hungry and Hopeful to Keep It Out of Committee's Hands in 2022

Omaha is the place everybody wants to be in the world of College Baseball come June. While only eight teams make it, all 299 Division I programs dream of ending their season in the midwestern Mecca for the sport.

However, in order to have a chance to do so, you’ve first got to make the NCAA Tournament. That’s something that Georgia wasn’t quite able to do in 2021 – whether or not the Bulldogs deserved a spot is still up for debate.

Scott Stricklin’s ball club sat in their locker room at Foley Field on the morning of May 31st and watched as 64 teams had their name called, signifying selection into the NCAA Tournament, before quickly turning their attention to the regional matchups for the weekend to come. Meanwhile, Georgia players packed up their equipment and headed home without any more games to be played.

Should they have made it? Quite possibly. Georgia finished 31-25 on the season with a 13-17 record in the SEC. While the Dawgs didn’t have many signature series wins, with the exception of a dominant weekend up in Nashville beating No. 1 Vanderbilt, they avoided being swept by the likes of Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida and Ole Miss, all of whom hosted NCAA Tournament Regionals. Furthermore, Georgia beat LSU in the SEC Tournament in what felt like a loser-goes-home game before watching the Tigers make the field. Remembering that feeling has created a sense of urgency to keep things out of the committee’s hands in 2022.

“That’s all we want, to make it to Omaha. That’s always the final goal,” Georgia senior Connor Tate said. “Last year was miserable getting left out like that. We’re not going to let that happen again.”

Tate is among the group of players that decided to return to Athens for another crack at making it to Omaha. Fellow fifth-year seniors Ben Anderson, Garrett Blaylock, Josh McAllister, Chaney Rogers and his twin brother Cole Tate also chose to come back, passing on other opportunities that they might have had. The same goes for junior pitcher Jonathan Cannon, who set a high price for himself in the MLB Draft as a draft-eligible sophomore knowing that he could develop his game just as much, if not more, by coming back to Georgia. Combine all of those that returned with the freshmen and sophomores that didn’t have a choice but gained valuable experience last season, like Corey Collins, Fernando Gonzalez, Parks Harber and Liam Sullivan among others, and Stricklin could have the perfect mixture to make 2022 a special season.

“We expect to challenge for SEC Championships. We expect to get this program back to Omaha,” he said. “Bottom line is, you can’t teach experience, and we’ve got experience on this team. Everybody that’s going to start in these games, we’re going to have a couple of freshmen that play but for the most part, these guys have all been in the battles and they’re all good players. Half of these guys could be playing pro ball right now and they decided to come back. It’s a good problem to have. We’ve got a deep roster with a lot of experience, and when you have that experience, that’s going to trump some talent sometimes. We’ve got talent too, and there’s some really talented teams in this league and in this region and across the country, but we feel like we’re as deep and as talented as anybody.”

Overall, the experienced roster that the Bulldogs bring to the table this spring is filled with hunger. They remember getting knocked out of the NCAA Tournament at home in 2018 and 2019. They remember not having a chance to capitalize on one of Georgia’s best squads in quite some time in 2020 with the COVID shutdown. They remember what it was like to be left out in 2021. They don’t want that to happen again in 2022.

“Last year we left it in the hands of the committee. I think the biggest thing for us this year is, we’re going to leave no doubt,” Cannon said. “We definitely have the team to do that with an incredible mix of young but experienced guys along with old veteran guys. That mix is going to help us a lot in being successful this season.”

“I think they’re very hungry, and that’s why these guys came back,” Stricklin added. “Jonathan Cannon had a chance to sign, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to come back. McAllister, the Tate twins, all those guys could be gone, but they all came back. They’re here to do something. They’re here to win a championship. They’re here to get this program back to Omaha. There’s certainly a chip on the shoulder and a lot of hunger.”

Georgia and Albany set set for a three-game series this weekend with first pitch on Friday coming at 2:00 p.m. ET. Saturday’s game is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. ET with the Sunday finale at 1:00 p.m. ET. All three games can be seen on SEC Network+.

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