The No. 3 seed Georgia Bulldogs (31-30) head into the Pacific Northwest to face the second-seeded Bluejays of Creighton (44-14) Friday at 4 p.m. in the NCAA baseball tournament. The winner of the game will face the winner of the Oregon State-Arkansas, Little Rock (24-32) game Saturday The losing team will have a second chance for redemption because the regional is a double-elimination tournament. The champion of the regional will face the winner of the Nashville Regional in the super regional.
The Bulldogs however will be playing with a reduced postseason roster because senior pitcher John Herman left the team in order to take a job with Regions Bank. Herman, who stands with a stout 6-5, 210 pound frame, appeared in 22 games for Georgia while posting a 1-3 record and a 6.97 ERA in 20.2 innings. His final appearance involved him throwing 3.1 scoreless innings against No. 3 Florida in the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., on May 28.
As Georgia coach David Perno stated, “John told me he had accepted a position with a bank, and he needed to get ready to move and was starting Monday. I wished him well and thanked him for his contributions to the program. He’s been with us since 2007 and got to pitch a little last year and then was doing a lot more this year. He had his best outing at the SEC Tournament last week.”
Georgia will send junior Michael Palazzone (10-4, 3.20 ERA) to square off against Creighton’s ace senior Jonas Dufek (11-1, 2.17 ERA). One player Georgia must keep an eye on is the Bluejays’ Trever Adams (.392, 14 HRs, 57 RBIs). He leads the team in all three respective batting categories. The Bulldogs will try to cool off Creighton, which has won nine out of their past 10 games. In order to do this, sophomore Kyle Farmer (.304, 7 HRs, 53 RBIs), second baseman Levi Hyams (.318, 4 HRs, 37 RBIs) and junior Zach Cone (.284, 3 HRs, 32 RBIs) must continue to pull the load of the Georgia offense.
This will be Georgia’s sixth NCAA Tournament berth under Perno and tenth overall. His teams have posted a 14-7 record in region play, 6-2 in super regionals, and 6-6 in the CWS.
When asked how Georgia has so much success in the NCAA Tournament, coach Perno responded by simply stating “the schedule.”
“The conference we’re in and playing a tough non-conference schedule,” Perno told the AJC. “There are no surprises for us. We’ve seen the best guys in the country all year. We’re just not going to be shocked by anybody we run into.”
Due to the Bulldogs’ tough strength of schedule in the SEC and non-conference, nobody in the Corvallis Region should take them lightly.
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