Baseball/Softball Weekend Recaps

It was pretty big weekend across the Georgia Tech softball and baseball diamonds.

The Softball team's historic season ended against the Washington Huskies on Sunday. In all honesty, the Huskies were just the better team and rightfully deserve to make the trip to Oklahoma City. They will play the mutts from Athens. I hope they beat 'em good. Needless to say, we are proud of our softball team. The inaugural season of the on-campus softball field (AKA "The Mew") was a grand success. We look forward to next year!

Oh, and after further review from this previous discussion, Danielle Lawrie was not quite what we all hoped her to be, but the team as a whole was lookin' pretty solid.

Lawrie at Tech

The baseball team ran in to some trouble over the weekend in the ACC Tournament but that can be overlooked thanks to the NCAA Tournament seedings. Atlanta was selected as a host and GT was granted yet another Regional #1 seed. The invitation to the tournament is the Jackets 3rd consecutive and 23rd in 25 years.

In addition to Georgia Tech, three more schools will battle it out to advance to the Super Regionals:
#2 Elon University (Wes Durham's alma mater)
#3 Southern Mississippi
#4 Georgia State--The Jackets will play against the Panthers this Friday at 7pm.

The winner of the Atlanta regional is slated to play the winner of the Gainesville Regional, hosted by the National #8 seed Florida Gators. This pairing tells me that a lot of weight was put into the RPI of the schools and less weight was put into performances towards the end of the season. Playing the #8 National Seeded region would make us the technical #9 seed, which means we were the last team to miss the National Seed.

Click here to see all regional pairings.

Washington's Key Player: Danielle Lawrie

Super-Regional Information
Time: 12 Noon & approx. 1:30 PM
TV: ESPN

This year has been a historic year for Georgia Tech softball. The new field, finally on campus, has been a place where excitement has thrived, full of exciting and dominating performances. This Saturday marks the farthest the softball team has ever made it in the postseason. The hosting of the Super Regionals is a special mark. Proving you are among the elite of the softball teams (plus you have a facility that has lights).

It will be a daunting task on Saturday. The Washington Huskies come in as the National #3 seed (Tech is #14) and have National Player of the Year Finalist Danielle Lawrie on their side. Expect to see her and only her pitch this entire weekend. The only thing at stake? A berth in the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.

She is who stands in the way

Danielle Lawrie is what powers the Huskies. With an overall recored of 35-7, she dominated the Regionals in Amherst, MA and has no-hitters logged against powerhouses #6 Arizona and #2 UCLA. She has also shutout No. 1 Florida, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Stanford, No. 7 Michigan, No. 8 Georgia and No. 11 Ohio State this season. Note that Florida, Alabama and Georgia all played and beat us this season. The task will be daunting, but the reward will be tremendous.

Washington is 44-11. They are not invincible and have been beaten. They also don't get involved in slugfests. Either their bats are hot and Lawrie throws the heat or the bats can't connect. When the Huskies have lost, they lose by an average of 4 runs. Not the slimmest of margins in softball, and this tells me that Lawrie is the anchor of the team. Her success leads to team success. Hold the other 8 at bay, make sure Lawrie doesn't beat you (twice) and you're in.

Sounds easy doesn't it?

A little bit of trivia: There is a degree of separation between Georgia Tech and Washington. Lawrie and our very own Jen Yee both played for Canada in the Beijing Olympics in August.

Big Weekend Recap: Clutch and Not-So-Clutch

Unclutch: Losing to Duke. The baseball team lost their series to Duke over the weekend and thus proceeded to lose the ACC, the Coastal Division title, and possibly a National 8 seed in one fell swoop. The Jackets enter the conference tournament as the #4 seed overall and will face Miami on Wednesday at 12pm. The tournament is round robin and we will play Miami, Boston College, and Florida State in that order. The team with the best record will play for the championship.

Where would we be without our main man Deck McGuire? Nowhere my friends. We should all be grateful for his services.

Moving on to clutch....
GT Softball advances to the Super Regionals! They swept through the tournament and sealed the deal by holding off a pesky Boston University. They will host the national #3 seed Washington Huskies. UW battled it out long into the night with UMass, losing Game 1 and then finally lighting the scoreboard up in the 15th (yes 15th!) and racked up 5 runs to win 6-1 in Game 2. Their pitcher, Danielle Lawrie tossed all 15 innings worth and struck out 23.

Some may wonder why do we get to host the event since we are the lower seed (National #14). It's because Washington has no lights and that is a requirement to host a regional. Many years, we have had to be shipped because of that same problem, now we got preference. It's time for Tech fans to realize that and show up and support the team.

Game 1 is May 23 and 24th on an ESPN channel. All games played at the "Mew".

A Great Weekend Recap

It was a great weekend to be a Georgia Tech fan.....

Congratulations to GT Softball as they have won their 3rd ACC Tournament Championship in school history! The Jackets held off a comeback bid from Florida State in the 7th inning and eliminated the Seminoles. Kristen Adkins pitched the complete game and improved to 23-7 on the year. 5 Yellow Jackets made All-ACC Tournament.

The next step for the GT team is the NCAA Tournament. The ladies received an overall 14 seed in the tournament and will host an NCAA Regional in the inaugural year of their new stadium! Three teams will come to Atlanta May 15-17: Iowa vs. Auburn and Boston University will face the Jackets.

Baseball

Deck McGuire proved to be his stellar self on Friday, settling down and shutting down the Seminoles in 7+ K fashion. Saturday was gut wrenching as Mark Pope blew the game wide open and failed to get the job done.

Sunday proved to be just as nerve racking but with the opposite result. The 'Noles brought in a 5th infielder in the bottom of the 9th but it didn't matter, as Tony Plagman's hard groundball was too hot to handle and scored the winning run. The win lets the Jackets not only win the series against Florida State, but also regain control of the Coastal Division. Thank you NCSU Wolfpack!

Tennis

And last, but not least, Women's Tennis dominated their Regional consisting of Denver, Jackson State, and Ole Miss. They move on to College Station, TX the site of the rest of the tournament and they will face National #8 Seed California on May 15th.

Hats off to Amanda McDowell as she battled out a hard fought match to beat her opponent. She lost her first set and then the trainer had to come out to see her before the second set. In the second set she seemed to have limited mobility but stayed with her opponent and fended off four match points before winning in a tie break to preserve the Jackets 3-1 lead. Her second set win was a big psychological motivator for the team and she was leading in the third set when Christy Striplin clinched the match.

Huge baseball series this weekend

Baseball
Our last three home games are this weekend against FSU. We need wins. Period. Unfortunately for us Chapel Hill plays good-for-nothing NC State and we play #6 FSU. So let's hope for some luck and good ol' fashioned Hall Ball. Last time we played FSU at home things resulted in a lot of tears in my beers. So let's prevent that magnitude of meltdown and kick the crap out of Chief Osceola. An NC State upset or two would be nice as well.

Softball
Also, softball starts their ACC tourney run today at 5:00pm against lowly Virginia. Tech is the #1 seed after taking the ACC regular season title by half a game. I'm really happy to see this team succeeding. I used to attend the softball games regularly especially in the Summer of '07. I want to see a game at the new stadium so hopefully we'll be hostin' some fools come tourney time.

Non-sports
Patrick Whaley, GT Civil Engineering student, is listed as being in stable condition at Grady Hospital after being shot by car jackers in Atlanta. Good luck getting back to your feet dude.

Weekend Diamond Reports

Yes everyone, I am alive. I didn't die or get brutally injured. I was just finishing up my finals. Major thanks to Bird for keeping things going. Now on to the important stuff.

Softball:

The GT Softball team finished up a rain shortened series with a 2-game sweep over Maryland in College Park on Saturday. The wins solidify the #1 seed for the ACC Tournament and they will face Virginia starting May 8th in Raleigh.
Note: It's a single elimination tournament so it's literally "Win or Go Home. Go Jackets!

Here is how dominant our softball team has been this year:

Georgia Tech now concludes the regular season having won 13 straight league games and was victorious in all seven ACC series' in 2009 and 10 in a row dating back to last year. Overall, the Yellow Jackets have won 14 of their last 17 games heading into the postseason.

Baseball:

It was a warm-up weekend for the baseball team as the Jackets swept Presbyterian. Sunday was an unleashing of runs as the final score was 23-2. Biggest scare came on Saturday when we needed Jeff Rowland to hit the walk-off home run.

The weekend brought a few changes to the ACC as not everyone played teams like Presbyterian. FSU swept Virginia Tech and took complete control of the Atlantic Divison. The Seminoles have now won 12 in a row and they come to Atlanta this upcoming weekend to end the conference season and to solidify seedings for the tournament. Coastal leader North Carolina has the weekend off.

Current ACC Standings:

ATLANTIC DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
Florida State	18-7-0	.720	33-12-0	.733
Clemson	16-11-0	.593	32-16-0	.667
Boston College	12-13-0	.480	29-19-0	.604
NC State	8-16-0	.333	22-26-0	.458
Maryland	7-20-0	.259	23-26-0	.469
Wake Forest	6-18-0	.250	21-24-0	.467
COASTAL DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
North Carolina	16-7-0	.696	35-11-0	.761
Georgia Tech	14-7-1	.659	31-11-1	.733
Virginia	13-8-1	.614	35-9-1	.789
Miami	15-12-0	.556	31-16-0	.660
Duke	12-12-0	.500	29-17-0	.630
Virginia Tech	10-16-0	.385	27-20-0	.57

Once again, it's gonna be a huge upcoming weekend.....

St. Patrick's Day Celebration

It's St. Patrick's Day. March Madness is about to begin. Tech plays baseball and softball today.

Everyone needs to take down a pint of the finest Irish brew their local pub serves on this partially cloudy Spring Day. Cheers to those of Irish descent (like myself), those that wish they were of Irish descent, and to the GT athletes competing today. Good luck.

Busy Tuesdays

Just received text from Winfield/Dane: "At the beach, blog abandoned for week"

Silly Bird. Spring break is for kids.

So here are some quick hits from the news world. Ninth seeded Tech is headed to Iowa to play the Hawkeyes in the Women's NCAA Tournament. Congrats to Coach Joseph. Women's bball is becoming a legit ACC team. Mark Bradley pours some gas on the fire Hewitt fire. Softball is on a five game win streak headed into today's games against Western Carolina. And the Joltin' Jackets welcome inner-metro rival Kennesaw State to the Rusty C. for a home-home series starting today.

If there's one team I've been waiting to see this year, it's baseball. I wanna see the GT bats hittin' like they used to.

Also, here is an awesome website with 1990/2008 highlights on it. Shawn Jones is a bad mother.

GT > Mercer and Softball sweeps Grand Opening

Georgia Tech bats found a rhythm against the Mercer Bears pulling out 5 homers and 18 hits against 8 different Mercer pitchers. GT's pitching staff got in on the ass kicking striking out 10 Maconites. Wednesday brings KSU to town for baseball.

There's a shadow looming on the horizon, however...ugag reached #1 in most baseball polls this week. It's looking like it could be a top 10 danceoff when the bullfrogs come to ATL on the 25th.

Also, softball took care of business against UT-Martin. The first ever games played on the new field represent a crisp new jewel in the crown of King Radakovich.

And theLegacy Athlete of the Day goes to Kristen Adkins who racked up four hits in the first softball game including a game winning homer. She also pitched the second game, receiving a win in the record books. Pretty impressive.

Look on the bright side, the weather's nice

Woe is GT...blah blah blah. I understand that GT bball is struggling...maybe struggling is an understatement.

Personally, I am still following the bball games and particularly this coming weekend's game against State. I work with about 5 or 6 NC State grads that annoy the Hell outta me about anything and everything State. So this weekend is CRUCIAL.

Now I know Winfield is giving mad props to the upcoming baseball season but I gotta send a shoutout to one of my favorite sports at GT: softball. Reasons for enjoying softball games: 1) Women 2) Weather 3) Speed and tempo of the games 4) Great venue. You're probably all thinking, "This guy's a poser and has never been to a softball game." I'll call your bluff with Exhibit A:


That would be me in the white t-shirt in front of the front left fender of the Wreck (this would also be the last time I parked so close to the infield). I was not alone either. And this was not the only game I attended because I enjoyed the atmosphere. If I could recommend a game to attend, I'd obviously recommend Georgia games because both teams really turn it up against eachother (plus, Coach Perkins is undefeated against her alma mater). Some quick home schedule highlights, to me, are the following:

*March 14th - Kennessaw State (inner city rivalry)
*March 28th-29th - FSU series
*April 10th-11th - NC State series (Wolfpack fans show up to this series)
*April 25th-26th - UNC series

Those are some weekend series that'll let you get out and enjoy the Spring time weather in ATL and the brand new Softball stadium.

Are you boggled by passion for the non-rev sports? Are you jaded because you were on the swimming team and I didn't mention you by name? Discussion is also welcome to anyone who is ready for the weather to stay nice.