The University of Georgia had lost just three home games all year before this past weekend.
In the Bulldogs' last 12 games at Foley Field, they had allowed a combined 22 runs. Total.
That's what Florida State scored in two games against the vaunted UGA pitching staff en route to sweeping through the Athens Regional over the weekend.
All told, Florida State scored 35 runs on 45 hits (10 homers) in the three victories. The 13 runs against Florida Atlantic in the opener was an encouraging outburst to be sure, but nobody could have foreseen what the Seminoles did to a very good, very proud Bulldog team the next two nights.
"Confidence," was the word assistant coach Mike Martin Jr. used repeatedly on Sunday night in describing the offensive onslaught. His hitters had plenty for sure. But they also had a game plan, he said, and executed it to perfection against Bulldog starters Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox.
Hancock is a hard-throwing righty who had a sub-2.00 ERA during the regular season and is considered to be a potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. Wilcox, also a hard-throwing righty, turned down a lot of money in 2018 to attend UGA and could very well be a high draft pick himself in the 2021 Draft.
Neither made it to the fifth inning against the Seminoles.
"You always want to do something early to jack them up," Martin Jr. said of facing elite pitchers. "That's why you look at all the film. And there were a couple of counts I caught them in where I said, 'All right. Get ready.' One guy was 1-1, one guy was 2-1. And I said I want you to look for it (a particular pitch) and pop it. And it will startle him. Like, 'Wait a minute, man. Nobody has done that all year.'
"And a lot of times it works. That's what we did with Appel (Stanford ace Mark Appel in the 2012 Super Regional) and some other guys. When you're going against a front-line guy, you've got to do something he hasn't seen."
Coming into Sunday night, Wilcox had allowed just two homers all season.
Reese Albert wasted little time getting that number up to three as he socked a two-run opposite-field homer to left in the top of the first inning.
