The SEC tournament is single-elimination for Tuesday’s first round matches, and then double-elimination thereafter. With the stakes as they are, the Bulldogs will take an all-or-nothing approach.
Freshman Luke Wagner (3-3, 4.75 ERA) will get the start, compatriot Jaden Woods (3-1, 4.93) will be ready to go right behind him and pretty much all the other pitchers on the roster will be available after that. Everyone except Jonathan Cannon. The second-year flame thrower comes off a crushing start against Ole Miss on Sunday where he had eight strikeouts on 89 fields in seven innings to claim the victory.
LSU will counter with junior right-hander Landon Marceaux (6-4, 2.04), his regular Friday starter. Although it’s been a tough year for the Tigers, they remain a powerful program in the league, with 17 championships in total and 12 tournament championships. They’re trying to win their ninth consecutive NCAA tournament bid. Georgia are looking to secure their third straight title, which would be a program record.
The Bulldogs did not play LSU in the regular season. Their last meeting was in 2019 in Athens, when Georgia won two of the three matches. LSU leads the all-time series 68-23-2 including 9-2 in the SEC tournament. They last met in Hoover in 2009 when LSU won two games in seven innings.
Tuesday’s winner will face No.1-seeded Arkansas, top seed and SEC champion, at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
But count Georgia at your peril. Earlier this season, the injury-riddled Bulldogs won two of three games for then-ranked No. 1 Vanderbilt in Nashville. They took the top-ranked Razorbacks to the brink of the abyss in Fayetteville, narrowly giving up on the rubber game of the series 5-3, and only after Webb left with what turned out to be a season-ending injury. .
Georgia got to this point despite losing four of five planned starting pitchers to injuries and seeing regulars like Josh McAllister (.352-9-29) and Corey Collins (.276-7-35) sidelined for long periods of time.
“We have responded to adversity all year round,” Cannon said. “It started in the fall losing (pitchers) Will Childers and Garrett Brown. It was a big blow. Then we lost CJ (Smith) and Logan (Moody) the first few weeks of the season and now Webby and Connor and Riley have been back and forth. We were really beaten, but our team are responding and have played very well in recent weeks.
Mr Stricklin said: “Everyone has injuries, but I’m not sure if anyone treated them the way we did. … For us, playing like we did shows a lot of character.
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