Lady Dogs

The Lady Dogs continue to roll with their second straight rout. After a 41-point win at Alabama on Thursday, they ran South Carolina out of Stegeman yesterday. They used a stifling defense to jump out to a 36-8 advantage and cruised the rest of the way to an 81-57 win. Tasha Humphrey recorded another double-double, the three-pointers were falling again, and Georgia outrebounded a much taller South Carolina team. Georgia’s pressure kept South Carolina from even getting the ball to their post players, and the large deficit forced the Gamecocks away from their strength inside into a jumpshooting team.

Georgia’s most difficult challenge in their remaining three regular season games might be this Thursday at Kentucky. The Wildcats are a quality team, and it will be a hostile environment at Rupp Arena. This is a classic "take care of business game". Kentucky, at 16-10 (5-6 SEC), is fighting for the postseason and trying to finish in the upper half of the SEC after their best season in decades a year ago. In short, they’re backed into a corner and desperate. With a shot at the SEC’s #2 seed, Georgia must win out and have Tennessee beat LSU. The Lady Dogs look to be building into good form late in the season, and we’ll see how ready they are to make a push into the postseason with their performance at Kentucky.

Gym Dogs

I don’t know much about gymnastics, but I do know that a score of 198 is pretty damn good. It’s especially nice coming against rival Alabama. Some Bama falls made the margin wider than usual, but this was much more of a meet that Georgia won than Alabama lost. It’s obvious that this team has the ability to compete at a championship level again, so we’ll tune back in for the SEC championship. With Florida, Georgia, and Alabama ranked 1-2-3 nationally, the SEC championship could be an NCAA title preview.

Georgia Baseball

The news wasn’t as good for the baseball team. Bullpen meltdowns led to a sweep at the hands of defending national champion Oregon State. On Friday and Saturday, Georgia carried big leads into the late innings before giving up six runs in Friday’s ninth inning and seven runs in Saturday’s eighth inning. On Sunday, three runs in the seventh inning broke open a 2-2 tie. It’s way too early to panic, but Coach Perno is considering some remedies. "We’ll probably pull one of our starters and put him in the bullpen to solidify things," he said.

Though the bullpen was ultimately the big story of the weekend, Georgia’s starting pitching was pretty solid against a good opponent. It was also a good debut for a number of younger players like right-fielder Matt Cerione who will be counted on later in the season. They have a ten-day layoff before a trip to Mercer which will be their only road game in the early part of the season.