Georgia turns attention to SEC play with momentum coming in

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia Baseball opens SEC play on Saturday, and the Bulldogs do so with a challenging opponent. After Friday’s rainout, Georgia (13-4) and No. 16 South Carolina (17-1) will meet for two games on Saturday at Foley Field.

“When you come to practice the next day, you feel a whole lot better about things after a win, and the air of positivity is a lot easier to do that,” Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin said on Tuesday after his team took down the Wofford Terriers, who held the nation’s longest winning streak entering the contest. “If you get a loss on Tuesday, you’ve got to try to pick the guys back up. They’re disappointed when you lose. To win like that, to fight like that, to find a way to win over a really good team, hopefully that can give us some momentum.”

“The biggest thing for me is that we’re healthy,” Stricklin continued. “Corey Collins was back in the lineup. Parks Harber is swinging the bat better, feeling better. Cole Wagner had been hampered with a little bit of a shoulder. He said he felt great today, so having all those guys not quite 100% but pretty close is important for us.”

After Tuesday’s 10-8 win, Georgia’s 11th game this season posting 10 or more runs, the Bulldogs are 13-4. Winning eight of their last 10 including two wins each over in-state rivals Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern, the Bulldogs look to carry the momentum they’ve gained into SEC play where the talent level gets cranked up a notch. Based on the current rankings from D1Baseball, Georgia takes on six of the nation’s top seven teams in the country. That doesn’t include the 16th-ranked Gamecocks this weekend, another tough test.

“You’ve got to have it when you play a team like South Carolina,” Stricklin said about the importance of the momentum. “South Carolina, they’re 16th in the country for a reason. The rotation is very good. They have power arms. They’re bullpen is outstanding. They’re lineup is really swinging the bat, they’re hitting a lot of home runs too. It’s going to be a huge challenge and a huge test for us. We need the home field advantage. We need to have the crowd out here to give us some momentum and give us some energy and intensity at home.”

So far this season the Bulldogs have been powered by their bats. Charlie Condon is among the national leaders at the plate with a .531 batting average and 34 RBI while Connor Tate isn’t far behind, hitting .507. Tate was named one of Collegiate Baseball’s National Players of the Week along with SEC Co-Player of the Week on Monday while Condon received his second weekly honor from the conference earning Co-Freshman of the Week.

“It’s a ton of fun. Our bats feed off of each other, and this whole offense, guys are putting good swings on it, and sometimes it doesn’t fall for certain people but top to bottom this lineup is barreling baseballs,” Condon said. “Yeah, me and Connor have had some success because our balls have been falling, but this whole lineup is really hot now.”

“It’s really about trying to keep the same approach,” Condon continued when asked how he and the rest of the squad will try to carry over the success they’ve had into SEC play. “The stuff we’re going to be seeing is obviously a little bit better, higher velocity arms and guys with good offspeed stuff, but really it’s about the approach, staying inside the ball and trying to do the same thing no matter who you’re facing.”

Meanwhile, on the mound, the arms of Jaden Woods and Liam Sullivan have carried the weight. Georgia’s Friday and Saturday starters respectively, Woods and Sullivan are both 3-0 on the season after earning no-decisions in sub-par outings on opening weekend. Sullivan has a 0.44 ERA, not allowing a hit in two of his last three appearances, while Woods leads the squad with 30 strikeouts in 17.1 innings pitched.

“It’s great. We have one of the best offenses in the SEC. You see them, we’ve got guys that go out and put up runs every inning. As a pitcher, it’s really good to have that comfort,” Georgia freshman pitcher Matthew Hoskins said. “Right now the pitching staff is throwing really well. I think we’ve got a lot of momentum moving forward.”

“Of course Coach talked about it all week. It was a really big game for us, so to come out on top in that game it gives us tons of momentum,” Hoskins added about the Tuesday night win, one in which he threw 2.1 innings allowing just one hit and no runs, and its importance headed into SEC play this weekend.

Hoskins has established himself as one of Georgia’s top options out of the bullpen alongside the likes of Dalton Rhadans, Kyle Greenler and Chandler Marsh among others. With Sunday’s starter currently slated as “TBA,” Hoskins could be a contender if he doesn’t throw out of the pen on Saturday.

First pitch between the Bulldogs and one-loss Gamecocks is set for 2:00 p.m. ET with Game Two to follow around 6:00, both streaming on SEC Network+. Sunday’s game starts at 3:00 p.m. ET, airing on SEC Network.