ATHENS — Georgia baseball team makes its debut at No. 7 in Collegiate Baseball’s Fabulous 40 preseason baseball poll presented by Big League Chew bubble gum.
Georgia is in its seventh year under Ike Cousins head baseball coach Scott Stricklin. The Bulldogs welcome back 20 returning lettermen and 16 newcomers. Georgia returns seven starting position players including a pair of 2019 draft picks in Gold Glove Award-winning shortstop Cam Shepherd and infielder/outfielder Riley King. Also, several key components of the pitching staff are back including projected first round draft prospects Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox. Georgia’s No. 7 preseason ranking is its best in the preseason since 2009 when it was No. 4.
As far as northeast Georgia players on the Bulldogs' roster, former Jefferson standout outfielder Lane Watkins, a freshman, joins redshirt-senior pitcher and former Buford standout Justin Glover.
Louisville was chosen as the preseason No. 1 ranked team for 2020 after going 51-18 and finishing third last year at the College World Series. Five teams from the Southeastern Conference are in the 2020 preseason top 10, the most of any league in the nation. They include No. 2 Vanderbilt, No. 6 Mississippi State, No. 7 Georgia, No. 8 Auburn and No. 9 Arkansas while LSU came in at No. 11.
The 2019 Bulldogs earned a consensus final top 20 national ranking after going 46-17 including a school record mark of 21-9 in the SEC. Also, Georgia was a national No. 4 seed and for the second straight year played host to an NCAA Regional to cap its finest year in a decade.
The Collegiate Baseball newspaper poll is the oldest college baseball poll. Its birth took place during the 1959 college baseball season. The 2020 Bulldog season begins Feb. 14 with a three-game series against Richmond at Foley Field.
