There’s a new look to Georgia’s baseball schedule announced Wednesday afternoon and head coach Scott Stricklin could not be more pleased.

The change?

For the first time, the Bulldogs and arch-rival Georgia Tech will play a three-game weekend series, one which will see the two rivals meet in Athens (Feb. 28), SunTrust Park in Atlanta (Feb. 29), and Atlanta again to wrap up the set (March 1).

"Just being able to throw your 1, 2, and 3 guys in the pitching order, to see your aces, it's going to be a great atmosphere," Stricklin said in a phone interview with UGASports. "Crowd-wise, it helps. When you're playing on a Tuesday night, we've had really good crowds for those games, but I think playing on the weekend, it's a primer for the SEC for us, it's a primer for the ACC for them. We get to throw our best arms, they get to throw their best arms, and it really makes for a pre-conference series."

Strickin said getting the series put together wasn't that difficult to do.

"Not really. We had talked about it for a couple of years. The biggest challenge was getting SunTrust to be available at that time a month before (the Atlanta Braves) season starts, so worrying about the grass and making sure they were ready for opening day," Stricklin said. "But they were very cooperative; they wanted to make it happen. We just had to jump through a couple of hoops, but once we did, we were all on the same page. We all wanted to do it."

The rest of the schedule, which features 35 contests in the friendly confines of Foley Field, isn’t bad either.

Georgia will face non-conference foes Richmond (Feb. 14-16), Santa Clara (Feb. 21-23), Kennesaw State (Feb. 25), Georgia Southern (March 3), UMass (March 6-8), USC-Upstate (March 18), Wofford (March 25), Georgia State (March 31), Jacksonville State (April 14), Coastal Carolina (April 28), and Presbyterian (May 12).

The Bulldogs’ SEC home slate includes South Carolina (March 20-22), Auburn (April 9-11), Tennessee (April 24-26), Ole Miss (April 24-26) and Kentucky (May 14-16).

Road trips will include visits to Florida (March 13-15), Vanderbilt (March 27-29), Texas A&M (April 3-5), Missouri (April 17-19), and Arkansas (May 8-10).

Also, for the third year in a row, Georgia will play a game at SRP Park in North Augusta, S.C., the home of the Augusta Green Jackets, the Class A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. The Bulldogs will face Georgia Southern on March 4 at 5 p.m. Last year, Georgia blanked The Citadel 9-0 in front of an SRP crowd of 3,602 while in 2017, a crowd of 5,801 watched Georgia beat No. 8 Clemson 6-3 there.

Georgia will begin fall practice Sept. 18. The Bulldogs will play exhibitions against Columbus State on Oct. 20 at 1 p.m. at Foley Field and versus Florida on Nov. 1 in Jacksonville at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free for the exhibition in Athens and the three-game Red and Black Fall World Series (Oct. 25-27).

NOTES: Although players have been working out individually, the first official day of fall practice is set for Sept. 18. ...Stricklin said that pitchers Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox are currently in shutdown periods and won't pitch in the fall. Nothing is wrong, but their throwing programs are being delayed to make sure they're 100 percent for the spring. ...Stricklin said outfielder Tucker Bradley, who missed most of last season with an injured shoulder, appears to be 100 percent.