HOOVER, Ala. – Often, when you see a pitcher walking off the mound examining his thumb, it’s typically not good news.

Fortunately for Emerson Hancock and Georgia, this was not one of those times.

Instead of a worst-case blister, Hancock’s suffered a cut cuticle, which according to head coach Scott Stricklin, will not affect the sophomore or keep him from making his regular turn in the rotation during next week’s Athens Regional.

“The good news is, it’s not a blister. He cut the cuticle with his index finger,” Stricklin said. “He threw it, it came off the ball, and it sliced right there on the cuticle on top of the thumb.”

Fortunately, the injury looked worse than it actually was.

Hancock had a 1-2 count on Ole Miss second baseman Jacob Adams when the sophomore walked off the mound to be tended to by trainer Sean Boland.

Blood could be seen coming off of Hancock’s thumb.

“It wouldn’t stop bleeding. He was at 64 pitches, and we were going to do it anyway, so instead of going into the dugout and getting it fixed, we just decided to let Tony (Locey) have as much time as he needed to get loose. That’s why we made the change. It’s not going to affect him throwing, because it’s on top of his thumb. It’s just a freak thing, where he sliced the top of his thumb.”

Hancock allowed three runs on six hits in 3.2 innings, with no walks and three strikeouts before he was pulled.

“He made some real good pitches, but a few times, they were able to put some barrels on them, some little jam jobs, and some bloopers were getting in,” catcher Mason Meadows said. “It’s tough when you make good pitches and don’t get rewarded for it, but I thought he made pitches today.”

Although it’s not official yet, it will be on Sunday when the NCAA announces its 16 regional sites for the start of next week’s NCAA Tournament.

On Monday, the entire field of 64 teams and the 16 national seeds will be announced at noon on ESPNU.

Stricklin, whose squad fell in the finals of last year’s Athens Regional, is confident his team will be ready.

“I feel a lot more comfortable. I felt comfortable last year, but now we have all that experience. We went through the pain of getting beaten on our home field, that’s a bad, bad feeling,” Stricklin said. “But if you watch this team, it really has no panic to it. Even going to the ninth inning (Saturday) and we’re down two, there’s no panic; we had some good at-bats and gave ourselves a chance to win.”

The Bulldogs are also as healthy as they’ve been in a while.

One of the reasons: Stricklin expects to have sophomore lefty C.J. Smith back, which would further bolster his pitching staff. Smith hasn’t pitched in almost a month due to an injury to his lower back.

“C.J. Smith threw another bullpen today and will throw a simulated game on Tuesday,” Stricklin said. “We fully expect him to be on the roster for the regional. He was on the roster here, but we just wanted to make sure. So once we won these first two games, we decided to take our time with him to make sure he’s ready to go.”

“The challenge to our team is to win our last game. You go, you win your last game, and you’re national champions. We feel that’s a very good goal to have. I think it’s a realistic goal to have, and that’s what we’re going to try and do.” Scott Stricklin on the message to his team.

…Graduate DH John Cable extended his hitting streak to six games.

…With the game against Ole Miss Saturday, the Bulldogs have faced every team in the SEC this season. Coming into the SEC Tournament, they hadn't played Texas A&M, Arkansas, and the Rebels, but played them all here.

…Georgia reached the semifinals of the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2011.