One year after the disappointment of not earning a spot in the NCAA tournament, the Georgia Bulldogs are going back to college baseball’s big show.

On Monday, Georgia (35-21) learned it will indeed be part of the 64-team field and will head to Chapel Hill as the No. 2 seed at the North Carolina Regional.

The Bulldogs will take on Virginia Commonwealth (40-18) in the double-elimination tourney on Friday night at 7 p.m. VCU comes in on a 15-game winning streak and is back-to-back champion of the Atlantic 10. Host team North Carolina (38-19) will play fourth-seed Hofstra (30-21) in the other first-round game in Chapel Hill.

"We're really excited to be going. This time last year it was a really sad Memorial Day," head coach Scott Stricklin said. "It's going to be a challenging regional, but hopefully our best baseball is ahead of us."

The winner of the North Carolina regional takes on the winner of the Oklahoma State regional for a trip to the College World Series.

Georgia is making its third trip to the NCAAs under Stricklin in the past five years. It likely would have been the fourth, but Covid-19 wiped out the rest of the 2020 campaign after the Bulldogs started the season 14-4.

"I know we're all excited to go there," senior co-captain Ben Anderson said. "Hopefully, we'll play some good baseball and get out of their (with a regional championship).

For Georgia, the regional is also an opportunity to bounce back after a lackluster finish to the season.

The Bulldogs dropped their final four SEC series, and although Georgia came away with victories in each, the strong finish the team was hoping for never materialized.

Some notable injuries to the pitching staff did not help matters.

Georgia enters the regional with just two of its regular rotation members, Jonathan Cannon and Liam Sullivan, available. This means the Bulldogs will have to perhaps turn to sophomore lefty Luke Wagner and others to successfully navigate the four-team field.

The Bulldogs also ended the season with other minor injuries, but with a nine-day break between games, Stricklin said the extra time off will serve his team well.

"We've had (Josh) McAllister with his thumb and (Fernando) Gonzalez with his wrist, plus we've had a couple of hamstrings and backs," Stricklin said. "Everyone's beat up this time of year, so this is exactly what we needed."