Georgia Baseball Season Ends at 30-25

Bulldogs left out of post-season play.

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Georgia Baseball Season Ends at 30-25

Georgia Baseball Season Ends at 30-25

May 31, 2005

ATHENS ---- The 2005 University of Georgia baseball season officially ended Monday when the Bulldogs did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships. Up next, the Major League Baseball First-Year player draft is June 7-8.

At 30-25 overall and 12-17 in league play, Georgia missed the Southeastern Conference eight-team tournament by a half game. The difference between seventh and 11th place in the SEC was a half game. In fact, seventh seed Mississippi State who went 13-16 in league play, ended up winning the SEC Tournament over Western division co-champion Ole Miss.

Georgia coach David Perno said he knew his Bulldogs were a long shot to make the NCAA field especially after several upsets in various league tournaments this past weekend.

"We needed one more SEC win and they couldn't have played the SEC Tournament without us, but where we were at 11th in the league, the NCAA couldn't have let us in," said Perno.

"We had our chances in a lot of SEC games and were a pitch or two away in a handful of them, but the bottom line is we didn't win enough of them," Perno added. "You look at what Mississippi State did at the SEC Tournament and you think that could've been us. It's unfortunate but I understand and you have to move on."

The Bulldogs end the year with their third best fielding percentage ever at .969, but the hitting and pitching did not produce consistently. Offenisvely, Georgia's .265 team batting average ranked 12th in the SEC while the 4.88 team ERA was 11th. Georgia played one of its most ambitious schedules ever with an SEC-high 27 road games in 2005 going 12-15. Georgia dropped six SEC games when it had leads in the eighth inning or later. Ultimately, the Bulldogs ended the year with a 4-1 win at #11 Tennessee which kept the Volunteers from clinching a share of the SEC title. The Bulldogs played better down the stretch, going 9-9 in their final 18 SEC games including winning series over Auburn, Miss. State and Vanderbilt.

Here's a few notes on the top Bulldog performers in 2005.

  • Junior LHP Will Startup (6-4, 3.21 ERA, 6 Saves) led the Bulldogs in Wins and Saves. He made 25 appearances with four starts and one complete game. However, he had five blown saves too. For the second year in a row, Startup was named to the SEC Good Works Team for his community service.

  • Junior OF Kyle Keen (.320-0-17) went 4-for-5 in the regular season finale to raise his SEC batting average to a team-best .375 (27-72). Keen also led the team in batting overall at .320. Keen passed junior OF Bobby Felmy on the final day of the regular season. Felmy was the most consistent hitter this season at .307-6-31 overall and .339-4-18 in the SEC.

  • Sophomore RHP Brooks Brown (4-2, 5.51) went 3-0 with a 2.90 ERA over the last three weeks, beating Vanderbilt, Auburn and #11 Tennessee. These were the first SEC starts of his career.

  • Sophomore 1B Josh Morris (.273-12-45) led the team in home runs and RBI for the second year in a row and was the lone Bulldog to start all 55 games. Last year, Morris batted .319-16-71.

  • Freshman RHP Joshua Fields (3-1, 7.00, 1 SV; .161-1-2) registered a school record eight consecutive strikeouts in picking up a win in Georgia's 10-6 victory in 11 innings at Winthrop. Fields struck out the first eight hitters he faced in the three-inning outing. He was named to the SEC All-Freshmen squad as a designated hitter.

  • Georgia set a Foley Field attendance record for highest average per game this season (2005 YTD: 54,837 in 28 games/1,958 avg.). Since 1990, the best per- game average for a season was 1,871 in 2004.

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