After his fifth season, Scott Stricklin believes Georgia baseball has turned a corner

Head baseball coach Scott Stricklin’s final walk off of Foley Field this season was much sweeter than his first.

Georgia bowed out of postseason play by falling to Duke 8-5 and 8-4 in back-to-back games Monday in the NCAA Athens Regional, ending its season with a 39-21 record. This was a far cry from where it was entering the season and from where Georgia finished any of the previous four years with Stricklin at the helm.

He and his players entered the season with few expectations — the assumed best-case scenario was a fifth-place finish in the SEC East and narrowly eclipsing a .500 record. Each weekend that the Bulldogs claimed a series win, those were surpassed.

At the season’s end, Stricklin recorded 12 more wins than the previous high-mark in 2016 and a second-place finish in the conference. The buzz was palpable around Georgia baseball for the first time in nearly a decade.

“I’m very proud,” Stricklin said. “No one thought we could be here except for this team, program and administration. They believed in us, and we believed in ourselves. We built this together and the right way.”

At his post-game news conference, Stricklin was flanked by senior Keegan McGovern and sophomore two-way player Aaron Schunk, both of whom were vital parts to the Bulldogs’ surge this season. But the leader of the charge had his head held high.

The program took a step closer to its goal of a College World Series, even if it fell short. But Schunk sees the season's end as “unfinished business” and craves to be jumping on the Foley Field mound in elation like the Blue Devils did Monday night.

It was something that McGovern pondered many times during the previous offseason. He was coming off of a 25-win campaign, and his only postseason action was a one-and-done exit in the SEC Tournament. A .319 batting average and a team-high 18 home runs later, McGovern is glad he asked Stricklin permission to re-join the team and make his lone NCAA postseason run.

“This has been the best four years of my life,” McGovern said. “I wanted to try and get as many wins as I could this season, and I thank coach for letting me come.”

Added Stricklin: “I still chuckle at his request to this day … We wouldn’t be here without him.”

In his visit to the post-game locker room, Stricklin wanted his team to savor the moment and not let a regional exit diminish previous accomplishments.

It was a message especially true to the Bulldogs’ senior class, one which Stricklin expressed gratitude toward. Georgia bids farewell to five seniors — including McGovern, reliever Blake Cairnes and starter Chase Adkins. Many of those guys entered the program in Stricklin’s second season, and he credits them for helping the Bulldogs reach this point.

“Those guys believed in what we were selling,” Stricklin said. “We were selling that Georgia baseball was going to turn around because of guys like them who would believe.”

Stricklin walked out of his news conference and was greeted by Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity with a handshake, smile and lighthearted conversation.

The Bulldogs envision happier exits out of Foley Field to come.

“We put this program on the map,” Stricklin said. “And we intend to stay there.”

This story was originally published June 4, 2018 at 10:12 PM with the headline "After his fifth season, Scott Stricklin believes Georgia baseball has turned a corner."