The disappointment of not advancing past the NCAA regionals for the third time in three tries is not lost on Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin.

You can talk about the pitching injuries, you can talk other extenuating issues, you can talk about whatever you want.

However, Stricklin did not go that route during an interview Tuesday with UGASports.

“I’m the head coach. It’s my responsibility – no matter what. Whether it be pitching, hitting, base-running, whatever it is, I’m the head coach. It’s my program so, the blame’s on me,” Stricklin said. “I take a lot of pride in it; I take a lot of pride in how we do things, how we work and when we don’t get out of the regional, you beat yourself up. As coaches, we take responsibility for it. We own it.

“It’s disappointing that we’re not playing, but I love coaching this team, I’m proud of this team for the way they responded to all the adversity. We’ve just got to keep building. We’ve come a long way in nine years from where we started to where we are; we’re just going to keep building.”

For a fan base hungry for postseason success, Sunday’s elimination by North Carolina was another bitter pill.

Although Georgia’s made the NCAA tournament for the third time in four seasons for just the second time in program history, the disappointment of failing once again not to make it to a Super Regional is not lost on Georgia’s head coach.

“Getting to the postseason, yeah, it’s your goal, but when you’re at this level, you want to continue to play. To not be playing right now is a disappointment,” Stricklin said. “I was happy for our players to be able to play in the postseason, but I’m disappointed we did not go farther. There’s only one happy team at the end of the year, and we want to be that team. I’m disappointed we’re not still playing.”

The Bulldogs finished their season 36-23 after scuffling through May, dropping four straight SEC series to end the year before losing two of three games in the North Carolina Regional.

Stricklin was asked what he needs to do to finally get the Bulldogs over the regional hump.

“I think we’ve been consistently very good, but very good is not good enough. We want to be great,” Stricklin said. “In 18, 19 and 2020, we were a great team. We came up short in 18 and 19; 20 was an obviously disappointing end. Last year I thought we were a postseason team and didn’t make it. This year we were second-seeded team. So, we’ve consistently been very good; that’s not good enough in my opinion.

We need to be great, and to be great that means you get to the next weekend, get closer to Omaha, get to Omaha and that’s what all of our goals are.”

Two statistics stood out for the Bulldogs in 2022.

Georgia led the SEC in strikeouts (for hitters) and walks (for pitchers). In 519 innings, Georgia pitchers issued a league-worst 288 walks.

“There’s no question about it. You’ve got to put the ball in play more often to put pressure on defenses and you can’t give up free passes,” Stricklin said. “But Coach Kenny is not going to shy away from making pitchers pitch,” he said. “You fall behind in counts you still have to be able to throw a breaking ball for a strike. You can’t just feed fastballs in there and that’s what he’s trying to teach our guys. It’s hard lesson. We gave up some walks because we’re trying to continue to pitch and not just lay things in there.”

Nevertheless, Stricklin said that’s a statistic that must improve and will be a priority when the fall practice gets underway.

“The biggest thing is we’ve got to absolutely make it a priority in the fall that we’ve got to be able to throw a secondary pitch for a strike, you’ve got to be able to challenge the strike zone and as hitters you’ve got to be able to hit the ball, put it in play, hit it the other way with two strikes.”

In 2,052 at-bats, Georgia hitters struck out a league-worst 551 times, or once every 3.72 at bats.

Although seven other schools also struck out over 500 times.

Strikeouts aside, Georgia’s run production did improve from 2021.

This year’s Bulldog team batted .284 compared to .270 in 2021, hit 81 homers compared to 57 while the 422 runs scored were more than the 304 tallied the season before. Georgia struck out 510 times in 56 games in 2021.

“Our run production, our batting average, our runs all went up, but when that does go up you generally see strikeouts go up, too,” Stricklin said. “We’re going to have another group of hitters who are experienced next year, and if Ben (Anderson) and Connor (Tate) come back, we’re going to be old and deep again offensively. You’d like to think that experience will pay off and the strikeouts gets cut down some, but the run production is run production and overall, that went up.”

• Will Connor Tate, Ben Anderson and Jack Gowen take advantage of their Covid year and come back for one more season?

Stricklin will not know those answers until after the Major League Draft.

All three players have yet to take advantage of the Covid waiver provided by the NCAA and could return if they so desire. That depend on the draft, set for July 17. This year’s draft is once again only 20 rounds.

“They each want to play professional baseball, so that’s the thing you’ve got to wait on. (The three) are really good players and I think we all know in pre-covid, they’re getting drafted and they’re playing,” Stricklin said. “But the minor leagues have been condensed, the draft has been condensed so it’s tougher and tougher to get drafted, especially when you are an older player.”

• As he does at the conclusion of every season, Stricklin spend Monday doing exit interviews with his players before they headed off to play summer ball.

Sophomore pitcher Hank Bearden placed his name in the NCAA transfer portal, but so far he has been the only one.

Could others?

“You never know. Everybody wants to play. That’s the thing, you get to this level, kids want to compete and play, they want roles and sometimes they want bigger roles,” Stricklin said. “You never know, but the exit interviews all went really well. Guys are getting to go play summer ball and the guys who were injured are ready to continue their rehab. But as of right now, we don’t expect that (to leave).”

• In regard to the transfer portal, Stricklin said he expects to be active in the coming weeks as he scours the portal to help supplement some positions of need for next year’s team. Primarily pitcher.

“We need to bring in a couple of arms,” Stricklin said. “We’re really excited about the five freshmen arms we’ve got coming in, but we feel like we need to add a couple of more guys so that’s what we’re doing now, looking to bring in a couple of arms from out of the portal.”

There’s no shortage of potential candidates.

The NCAA Transfer Portal currently lists almost 2,000 baseball players looking for new homes.

“Every day you hit refresh and five more names go into the portal. It’s just constant. You’ve got to do a lot of home work. You watch a lot of film,” Stricklin said. “There’s film available on everybody now, you just keep an eye out and see who is out there.”

• With the season now over, Stricklin, along with assistants Sean Kenny, Scott Daeley and Brock Bennett are on the road recruiting, checking out players at the various summer league teams at places, including Lakepoint in Cartersville, Hoover, Ala., and East Cobb.

Unlike other sports, college coaches rarely have an opportunity to go see high school teams as their season overlap.

So, now is the time to do so.

• Stricklin said there will be no changes on his staff.

• With the season-ending injuries to Dylan Ross, Will Childers and Nolan Crisp, along with the fact that starters Liam Sullivan and Jonathan Cannon also missed time, Stricklin was asked if he thought there was anything the Bulldogs were doing on their end to cause so many arm ailments to occur.

“We’ve asked ourselves a million times what’s going on, is there something in the water, is it something we’re doing. I wish we had the answer,” Stricklin said. “A lot of people are dealing with arm injuries right now. You’re seeing it in professional baseball, you’re seeing it in college baseball and you’re seeing it in high school baseball. We don’t know if it was the Covid shutdown; we have no idea. But it’s been two years now we’ve been stricken with these kinds of injuries. We’re just hoping to overcome it.”

• Stricklin was also asked about the late-season travails of Cannon, whose stellar start to the year was kayoed by a strain in his forearm that he suffered while getting ready to warm up in the bullpen at Clemson back in early April.

Cannon would return to throw five innings of perfect ball against Alabama, but after that was never quite the same.

So, what happened?

“That’s a good question. They tinkered with some things after the LSU game and after Vanderbilt when it just didn’t go exactly to play to try and pinpoint,” Stricklin said. “Bottom line, he didn’t throw as many strikes with his off-speed pitch. His cutter, which was so good for him, he didn’t throw it for strikes as much and he was falling behind in counts.”

Unfortunately, the results were not good.

Cannon’s last five appearances saw him give up 26 runs in 26 innings, for an ERA of 9.00.

“It doesn’t matter who you’re facing if you’re falling behind in counts and Jonathan really relies on his off-speed stuff. He was falling behind with it, and then couldn’t throw it for a strike when he was behind,” he said. “He had to throw fastballs and when guys know fastballs are coming, guys can tee off on it a little bit. It’s just as simple as he lost a little bit of feel for his cutter, and he was falling behind in counts a little more often.”