ATHENS — Georgia baseball’s 3-1 start to the season was enough to maintain its ranking in several recognized polls entering its second week.
The Bulldogs maintained their No. 8 ranking in D1Baseball’s poll, used by ESPN. UGA also kept its No. 4 ranking from Perfect Game and No. 11 spot in the Baseball America poll, while its RPI ranking dropped one spot to No. 7.
Georgia beat Quinnipiac twice and split a pair of games with North Carolina-Wilmington, which earned the No. 2 seed in the Athens Regional last season.
Georgia’s offense looked unstoppable through the first three games, outscoring its opponents 23-9 going into Sunday.
The Seahawks (2-2) beat the Bulldogs 6-2 on Sunday after scoring all of their runs in the first inning. Seahawks starter Connor Marshburn silenced the Bulldogs offense with six hitless innings for one of the top upsets of the weekend.
Beating the Bulldogs certainly is a bigger deal this season for nonconference opponents than it was a year ago. Georgia’s expectations entering its second season under coach Wes Johnson are much higher than they were to start 2024.
Johnson has talked about the added pressure of wearing the SEC logo against nonconference opponents, especially considering the preseason hype his team accumulated. UGA received several high preseason rankings, including the No. 4 spot in Perfect Game’s preseason poll.
“I don’t know if you can say that anybody in the SEC has ever been an underdog, so it’s not like you’re going to hide, so you’d better get used to it,” Johnson said. “You’re playing the midweek against whoever and if they can beat you, that’s their signature win for the year. They can say they beat an SEC team.
“So you’d better get used to the target a little bit if you’re going to be good in this league, and hopefully we can go out and play well.”
The Bulldogs will try to keep up with the rest of the talent-stacked SEC. The nation’s top baseball conference will start Week Two with nine teams ranked in a Top 25 and six in a top 10.
SEC Teams ranked by D1Baseball
1. Texas A&M (3-0)
3. LSU (3-0)
4. Tennessee (3-0)
5. Arkansas (3-0)
8. Georgia (3-1)
10. Florida (3-0)
15. Vanderbilt (2-1)
16. Texas (2-1)
18. Mississippi State (3-0)
Georgia continues its tour of nonconference opponents Tuesday, when it visits Kennesaw State at 6 p.m. The Bulldogs will debut Foley Field’s new artificial turf with a home-opening series against Illinois-Chicago.
The four-game series starts at 3 p.m. Thursday and ends Sunday.
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