Ok, so I have been what many might call a critic of David Perno and our baseball team this season-or maybe you could say I have been a concerned fan of the program. Either way, I have to say GREAT JOB to our players and coaches for beating two top five teams back to back in elimination games to earn a shot at making a regional-which they did make and will now travel to Corvallis, Oregon, home of the Oregon State Beavers. OSU is the #1 seed in the regional of course, UGA the #3. In the first game, the Dogs will face Creighton with a sparkling record of 44-14. I admit I know little about Creighton but have heard they have an outstanding pitcher-course UGA does as well. Oregon State is surely a solid baseball program, having won back to back titles in 2006 and 2007. All that being said, this is a regional that we at least have a shot in. I would have like to have the team closer to home but school is out, and these guys will get to see an area most may never get to see again in their lives-so not horrible. This team is certainly battled tested and already made a west coast trip earlier this year and went 3-0. As for my thoughts on David Perno, I have stated before my opinion of him has nothing to do with him as a person, the guy bleeds red and black and has had a solid coaching career here. But, I think he needs to become more consistent and I am hoping that will start now-we know he is back next year, let's make next year a springboard off of this year WITHOUT such an incredibly hard schedule. Playing a tough schedule of course did help them make the tourney but it almost kept them out of the tourney-he needs to find a nice balance there. He also needs to recruit better and better. Sure he recruits some top kids but not ENOUGH of them to win. GT for example, they have a very solid FR class this year, they always seem to have higher ranked talent than us AND they always seem to win each and every year. Same goes for Clemson, FSU, UF, SCarolina and more recently, Vandy. Of course in the SEC west, you have LSU, Miss State, Bama, and Ark that have consistently good programs. Our program typically seems to be really good or really bad and I don't quite get that. Like I say, let's hope next year will continue our upward swing and then Coach Perno can keep us on a winning level for many years to come. I personally would LOVE for him to stay on and lead us to a national title-he came within a game of it a few years ago. But, he HAS to get our winning/consistency up to a higher level, plain and simple. This year of course has a chance to be special, and in some regards already has just by making it in against the odds-also have the horrible accident with JT. Here is a little more about the trip to Oregon from the Athens paper.
http://dogbytesonline.com/bulldogs-hit-oregon-trail-45924/
The Lady Dogs softball team had their season come to close in Athens Sunday evening. The Baylor Lady Bears won game 1, then UGA beat them silly in game two but to their credit, they came back and beat us up badly in game 3. You have to give that team a lot of credit for winning the series on the road, then getting beat like they did in game 2, great job by Baylor. That pitcher for them is only a SOPH, she is going to be tough for a couple more years-and she is a great hitter as well. Great job to the softball Dogs and even though they came up short this year, the seniors did make the CWS two out of their 4 years, great job. Here is more about the end of the road.
http://dogbytesonline.com/baylor-denies-dogs-a-third-straight-trip-to-world-series-45911/
We can now scratch off two pretty talented guards from the Dogs list-Ryan Harrow the NCST transfer picked Kentucky and Kevin Ware has picked Louisville-spurning UGA for the third time now. All I can say right now is I HOPE Coach Fox hits it big with the class of 2012. If not, I think he is going to have to hope and pray some of his lower ranked prospects turn into big time college players. He has recruited one elite player thus far in 3 classes, that be Caldwell-Pope. If you remember, CP's HS coach tried to get him to look around after he committed to us, saying he didn't think his decision through basically. I LOVE Mark Fox the coach but there seems to be something missing when it comes to recruiting. Hopefully he will land a top 20 class, as he should considering how LOADED this state is with elite prospects for the 2012 class. I have to hope for the best right now but I am a little concerned. I think Coach Fox can be the man to lead us to basketball consistency but I also think he needs some players to do it. Let's stay tuned over this summer and hope that maybe he gets one 2012 in the fold and then a few more will follow. I REALLY thought Harrow would come here, it was the perfect situation for him to sit out and then take things over for us. Ware, well, it appears that he never intended to come here-not sure why but maybe after he had been so locked in to being a Vol, maybe he just didn't want to have to play against that school two times at least every year-who knows.
One final note, thought this was interesting-Sanders Commings had a try out for the SF Giants recently. Sanders was a promising HS baseball player coming out of HS but decided to go to football. Now, he wants to keep his options open and expects he might get drafted in the upcoming June draft. He still plans to play football this fall but this kid is obviously a talented kid to be in this position. Good luck to him.
http://dogbytesonline.com/commings-works-out-for-giants-45913/
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