Spring Break
Struggling Diamond Dogs head into SEC Tournament
Staff reports
Issue date: 5/19/09 Section: Sports
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After spending the better part of the season wrecking Southeastern Conference pitchers, the junior first baseman struggled in the final three weeks. Heading into the Florida series at the start of May, Poythress boasted a .455 average with 72 RBI and 20 home runs, leading the then sixth-ranked Bulldogs to a 33-12 record overall, 14-7 in the SEC.
But after sweeps by the Gators and South Carolina a well as losing two of three to Vanderbilt, the Diamond Dogs dropped to 35-20, 15-15 in the SEC. Aside from the Vandy win and a win over Georgia Tech, Georgia went 2-8 record in its last 10 games. During that time, Poythress managed one home run, five RBI and watched his average drop to .379.
If the Bulldogs are going to have any success in this week's SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., Poythress will need to be back to his old self.
"Rich Poythress hasn't been himself in the last couple weeks," Georgia head coach Dave Perno said. "He's gotta take the pressure off the rest of our lineup. Two weeks ago was a player of the year candidate and lately he's had two RBIs. If that happens we're going to have a tough time scoring and that's been the case."
The sixth-seeded Diamond Dogs take on third-seeded Ole Miss Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. EST in the first round of the double elimination tournament. The Rebels took two of three from Georgia in late April, and despite the recent Diamond Dog troubles, Ole Miss head coach Mike Blanco sees a tough road ahead.
"All the teams are terrific in the SEC tournament and if you had to choose you'd like to play the team that's not going to play well," Blanco said. "Unfortunately we just don't know who that team is going itno the tournament."
"We just had a tough second half but I'm not disappointed or down on our guys," Perno said. "We've ran into some good teams that were playing very good. We just have to get back to doing what we do well and hopefully this week we can start doing some of those things. Last couple of weeks we've had a tough time pitching, we need to get back to doing things better together and our timing needs to improve."
Georgia's Justin Grimm (2-4, 4.39 ERA) goes up against Ole Miss, with Trevor Holder (7-4, 4.68 ERA) starting Game 2 against either second-seeded Florida or seventh-seeded Arkansas on Thursday.
The Rebels (40-15, 20-10 SEC) will be without star pitcher Scott Bittle, who shut down the Diamond Dogs in the series rubber match in April. Georgia faced Ole Miss in the opening game of the tournament last year, and the Rebels won 4-1.
The Diamond Dogs finished second in 1985, 1986 and 1989 but has never won the tournament.
"They got a really good lineup and pitching is their forte," Perno said of the Rebels. "It's an extremely difficult task dealing with Ole Miss in general. We gotta do things better all around for us to have success this week."
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