May 29, 2008
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech (39-19) makes its 24th appearance in the NCAA Baseball Tournament this weekend as the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Athens Regional in Athens, Ga. The Yellow Jackets will open regional play at Georgia’s Foley Field against the No. 3 seed and Big East Champion Louisville (41-19) Friday at 7 p.m.
Complete Release in PDF Format
The Yellow Jackets went 1-2 last week in the ACC Baseball Championship with a come-from-behind win over NC State in the opening game of the tournament and won each of their last four weekend series to end the regular season.
Joining the Jackets and Cardinals in the 2008 NCAA Athens Regional are the Lipscomb Bisons and the nation’s No. 8 national seed and regional host Georgia. The two teams will play in the first game of the regional at 3 p.m. Friday.
The winner of the Athens Regional will be matched up with the champion of the Raleigh Regional, hosted by NC State and also featuring South Carolina, Charlotte and James Madison, in an NCAA Super Regional, scheduled for June 6-8 or 7-9 at a campus site to be determined by 11 p.m. Monday, June 2.
Georgia Tech has earned its 22nd NCAA bid in the last 24 years and has posted a 54-47 record in NCAA play. The Jackets won regionals in 1994, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006, advancing to the College World Series in 1994, 2002 and 2006.
TV/Radio Coverage: The entire NCAA Athens Regional will be aired on CSS, while all of Georgia Tech’s games in the regional can be heard on WREK Radio (91.1 FM in Atlanta/www.wrek.org). Live stats for Tech baseball games can be found at Ramblinwreck.com.
Blackmon Tabbed Academic All-American
Charlie Blackmon was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America second team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America this week. The right fielder maintains a 3.71 grade point average as a business management major at Georgia Tech and has one semester remaining until graduation.
Blackmon became just the sixth Yellow Jacket baseball player to earn Academic All-America honors, joining a prestigious list of Tech alums – Nomar Garciaparra (1993, 1994), L.J. Yankosky (1997, 1998), Mark Teixeira (2000), Matthew Boggs (2002) and Steven Blackwood (2004).
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Freshman shortstop Derek Dietrich has received an invitation to the 2008 USA National Baseball Team Trials, held June 11-23 throughout the northeast and southeast United States. He is one of five freshmen in the nation to earn invites thus far in 2008.
In all, 32 players will be invited to the National Team Trials with 22 of those players being selected for the National Team roster, which will be announced June 24.
27-Straight … One Win from 40
With a win in the series opener at Boston College, Georgia Tech eclipsed the 20-win mark for the 27th-consecutive season. With a win in the series opener against Wake Forest, the Yellow Jackets eclipsed the 30-win mark for the 26th-straight year.
Georgia Tech has won 20+ games 34 times in history and reached 30 wins on 28 occasions. The Jackets are one win shy of reaching the 40-win plateau for the 20th time in history.
Yellow Jackets in the RPI
Georgia Tech enters the weekend ranked No. 7 in the nation in the most updated RPI (source: NCAA.com). Georgia Tech was the only school within the top 14 spots in the RPI that didn’t receive a No. 1 seed, and one of two top-10 RPI teams that were bypassed for hosting purposes (the other was Arizona, the No. 1 seed in the Ann Arbor Regional).
The Atlantic Coast Conference is well represented in the most updated RPI, with four teams ranked among the top 10 in the nation and another cracking the top-25. Miami leads all conference teams, standing at No. 1 in the RPI, while North Carolina (2), Florida State (3), Georgia Tech, NC State (12) and Virginia (22) join the Hurricanes in the top-25.
Two of the Yellow Jackets’ 2008 non-conference opponents also appear in the top-25 of the RPI – Coastal Carolina (6) and Georgia (17).
Georgia Tech has played 23 games against teams that currently appear in the top-25 in the RPI this season.
