A 9-0 loss to South Carolina Tuesday in the SEC Tournament capped what was an otherwise forgettable year for the Georgia baseball team.
What started with hopes of a return trip to the NCAA Tournament, ended with a thud at the Hoover Met, a loss that left even head coach Scott Stricklin acknowledging the only fact he could.
“You know what, when you look at it on paper, we had a bad year. That's the way I look at it. This program has a lot of expectations, and it has a lot of pride, and I didn't feel like we performed up to our expectations,” Stricklin said. “That's on me as the head coach. That's my responsibility. I take a lot of pride in trying to uphold that expectation here at Georgia, and this year we came up short.”
It was an ugly year in many respects.
Eight times this year, Georgia was either tied or held leads going into the ninth inning but wound up losing the game. Of those eight losses, seven came in SEC play for the Bulldogs, who dug themselves an early hole by starting 1-9 in league play.
Offensively, the Bulldogs weren’t bad. Led by SEC Freshman of the Year Charlie Condon, the Bulldogs batted a respectable .285 with 101 home runs, sixth in the league.
However, pitching was another story. Georgia struggled on the mound all season, posting a 6.38 ERA, walking 271 batters, and with 81 hit-by-pitches, tops in the SEC.
“We had a good non-conference, had some good series there. Started off really slow in non-conference, but as a team, we never looked down. We just kept fighting throughout the entire season, everybody, top to bottom,” senior captain Nolan Crisp said. “We had guys step up on the pitching staff, guys that were struggling, lineup, you name it. But you had guys stepped up, and nobody ever put their head down and we just fought to the end and made it here to Hoover today and gave ourselves a chance to keep playing.”
Ultimately, however, the season wasn’t going anywhere.
The Bulldogs failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time in Stricklin’s 10 years at Georgia, although one of those seasons – 2020 – was canceled due to Covid-19 after the Bulldogs started the year 14-4.
“It was certainly a disappointing year. We just didn't finish the games. When you look at our body of work, we had a lot of opportunities to finish off some games, and in this conference, you have to slam the door and get those three last outs in the 9th inning or the 10th inning or the 11th inning, whatever inning we were in,” Stricklin said. “That was where we struggled. We struggled late. But like Nolan said, I thought our kids fought really hard. They never quit. They competed every single day. They did everything we asked them to do.”
That includes starting pitcher Jaden Woods, who was making his first appearance in over a month due to biceps tendinitis. Woods was on a limit of 30 pitches and did not make it out of the second inning that saw the Gamecocks (39-17) jump out 2-0 and never looked back.
Thanks to right-hander James Hicks, South Carolina did not need to score a single run more.
Hicks limited Georgia to just four hits in 6.2 innings before Cade Austin closed out the game on just one hit the rest of the way.
“I think the biggest thing that got us today was James Hicks. James was really good. When that starting pitcher is locked in and throwing strikes like he did to our right-handers, staying on top of their hands all day long, it was a great day to pitch. The wind is blowing in, the park is playing big, so he was challenging guys with that fastball, and he's getting in there. He did a really good job with that,” Stricklin said. “I think that was the biggest issue today, was James Hicks, and we couldn't get the hit with runners in scoring position. We had some opportunities to bring it closer, to get some momentum, and we couldn't get that done.”
