Clayton News Daily

Jake Davies

By Doug Gorman

dgorman@news-daily.com

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets are headed back to the NCAA Tournament.

Tech will host the Atlanta NCAA Regional starting Friday.

The Georgia Bulldogs also made it to the tournament, but must make a long trek to Oregon to open regional play.

Tech enters the double-elimination Regional with a 40-19 record and will face Ohio Valley Conference champion Austin Peay (33-22) in a 7 p.m. matchup Friday. Southern Miss (39-17) and Mississippi State (34-23) round out the Atlanta Regional field.

Those two teams play the same day at 3 p.m.

The double-elimination tournament resumes Saturday with a losers' bracket game at 3. The two winners play at 7.

Eagle's Landing Christian graduate Jake Davies is expected to be in the lineup for the Yellow Jackets.

Davies, a junior season, has had his best year at the plate for the Jackets.

The former Eagle's Landing Christian pitcher and slugger is the second leading team on Yellow Jackets' team is batting .350 with four homers and 33 RBIs.

Georgia plays its way into tourney: Despite finishing the regular season just one game above .500, the Bulldogs' (31-30) national title hopes are still alive. Georgia heads to Coorvalis, Oregon where it will play Creighton Friday in a opening round game.

Also in the regional are Oregon State and Arkansas-Little Rock.

Only Southern Conference team in field: The Georgia Southern Eagles will be the lone representative from the Southern Conference at this year's baseball tournament.

The Eagles will play at South Carolina where they will face the Gamecocks in the first round.

N.C. State and Stetson are also in the field.