Tech, Georgia fired up about weekend baseball series

Georgia and Georgia Tech will get to play a weekend series for the first time in 61 years.

You read that right.

While the Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets have played each other every season, and multiple times a season, for decades -- and have faced off in a couple of notable postseason series played on the weekend, as well -- it as has been since 1959 that these rival schools been able to do it in consecutive regular-season games.

And these games will be anything but regular.

The first one will be played at 5 p.m. game UGA’s Foley Field, followed by a Saturday tilt at Georgia Tech’s Russ Chandler Stadium (2 p.m.) and a third Sunday at the Gwinnett Stripers’ Coolray Field in Lawrenceville (2 p.m.). That last one actually is the 18th annual Spring Classic for Kids, which benefits Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. The schools were unable to secure the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park this year, so they’ll play this year’s game in the more intimate surroundings of the Braves’ minor-league affiliate.

“Danny (Hall) and I have talked about it for about two years, trying to figure this thing out,” said Georgia seventh-year coach Scott Stricklin. “Getting Truist Park available was obviously one of the issues and that came into play this year. But Coolray was Plan B. So we just had to get our schedules settled, which we do about two years in advance, and we were able to get weekend three.”

Tech and Georgia traditionally play at least three times a season, but usually in mid-week games spread out over the spring and in the middle of their respective conference schedules. That has meant they rarely get the opponents’ best pitcher.

By playing each other back-to-back-to-back over the weekend, Tech and Georgia will get to match aces. We’ll see that in Game 1 Friday as the Bulldogs’ Emerson Hancock (1-0, 4.91 ERA) – a projected first-round pick in this year’s MLB draft – will face off against Tech ace Jonathan Hughes (2-0, 3.38).

Game 2 will match Georgia’s Cole Wilcox vs. Cort Roedig (1-1, 4.66), and Sunday will see Tech freshman Zach Maxwell (1-0, 1.00) go against UGA veteran left-hander C.J. Smith (0-0, 3.12).

“I think it’s going to be much more interesting for everybody – for us, for them, for fans – to have one game there and one game here and one game at Coolray,” Hall said following Tech’s 14-1 win over Gardner-Webb on Tuesday. “I think that sets up for a great weekend of college baseball here in our state.”

Said Stricklin: “It’s good for both teams, it’s a great rivalry and you get to see the weekend arms go head-to-head, so I just think it’s a great thing.”

As usual, both programs appear to be fielding stacked teams. Last year, both teams earned national seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Georgia finished 46-17 and Tech 43-19.

Georgia (8-1) comes in with a No. 4 national ranking and the No. 17 Yellow Jackets (7-1) are coming off a weekend sweep of Ohio State in which they outscored the defending Big Ten tournament champions by an aggregate 29-10.

Hancock has won 14 games his first two seasons, but has never thrown a pitch against Tech.

“I think it's really cool,” Hancock said of playing three days in the three different venues. “It think it turns it into a legit series, playing three games and not spread out. You get to throw everything you have at them.”

Currently, both teams are knocking the cover off the ball. Tech’s hitting .299 as a team with 10 home runs and 51 RBIs, while the Bulldogs are reaching at a .284 clip and have 13 homers and 62 RBIs.

The biggest difference in this year’s Georgia team is its speed on the base paths. The Bulldogs already have 18 steals in 19 attempts, compared with only 12 steals in 17 attempts all of last season.

Tucker Bradley leads UGA with a .485 batting average and a gluttonous .909 slugging percentage. Tech junior Michael Guldberg is hitting an incredible .593 with 16 hits in 17 at-bats.

Tech took two of the three games last year, winning on its home field and taking the rubber game at Suntrust Park 8-6. Georgia won six in a row spanning the previous two seasons.

“It is different having a weekend series with them,” said Guldberg, who plays left field for the Jackets. “We’re excited to give them our best and we’re going to get their best.”

As it stands, the Bulldogs have a 211-163-2 lead in the all-time series, which dates to 1898. For the record, Georgia won that first one 18-4. But that was the only game that season. The two schools have played 176 times in the 111 years since.

Everyone seems happy about adding three more this weekend.

This article was written by Chip Towers, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Staff writer Ken Sugiura contributed to this article.

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