The Sun Belt Championship game has been a place of heartbreak for the Georgia Southern baseball team. This weekend added another unfortunate chapter to the book as the Eagles were three outs away from punching their ticket to the NCAA regionals, only to see Southern Miss score five runs in the ninth inning as they fell 14-11.
Head coach Rodney Hennon was disappointed the Eagles weren’t able to finish things off in the ninth, but was pleased with how the Eagles finished the season, and in particular their Sun Belt tournament run.
“I feel like we were playing our best baseball when it mattered most,” Hennon said. “It hurts when you get to the championship game and come up short. It was a great baseball game and we battled back and forth but we just couldn’t finish it off.”
Hennon felt the potential was there all along, but said things started to click in the second half of the season.
“They really competed all year, but I think things finally started to fall together late in the season,” Hennon said. “This was a great group to coach in terms of their attitude and the way they showed up to work every day. They were an unselfish group and we had great leadership.”
Four teams from the Sun Belt conference received NCAA tournament bids with Southern Miss. getting the automatic and Louisiana, Coastal Carolina and James Madison receiving at-large berths. The Eagles were swept by James Madison in the regular season, but beat the Dukes twice in the tournament. Hennon said the team was hopeful they may get in, but felt it came down to a few games they let get away in the regular season.
“You can’t get swept and a couple more wins could have gotten us in,” Hennon said. “There are some really good teams in this league and I feel we are one of the five best conferences in the NCAA. You are going to lose a few series but you just can’t afford to get swept. It happened to us a couple times and I think if we could have avoided that we probably had a lot better shot at going to the post-season.”
The Eagles lose a couple key seniors off this year’s team but return the nucleus of the squad for next season. Hennon has a few incoming freshmen signed, and has to contend with next month’s MLB draft but will also be active in the transfer portal for a few players as well.
“The foundation of our program has to be the high school player,” Hennon said. “We do still have to be active in the portal, but I never want to be in a position where we are trying to build our roster off the portal. When you are plugging here or there where there is a fit I think the portal is useful. I think it is important you get the right guy not just from a talent standpoint but more importantly around the clubhouse and the locker room.”
Hennon points to Vanderbilt transfer T.J. McKenzie as a perfect example of a fit for Georgia Southern.
“He was a one-year guy but a humble, hard-working kid who was embraced by the team when he got here, and he embraced Georgia Southern,” Hennon said. “I told him during our exit interviews this week I wish I would have had him for more than just one year. You have to make sure you get that type of character kid if you are going into the transfer portal.”
In addition to the transfer portal NIL is another thing potentially separating the haves from the have-nots. Hennon knows the Eagles cannot compete with the likes of the SEC in terms of the amount of money they can pay or get for an Eagle player, but he hopes the culture and game-day atmosphere provided at J.I. Clements is something that can sway someone to Georgia Southern.
“We try to create a culture and environment where the kids in our program love to come to practice and play here at J.I. Clements,” Hennon said. “The ones who come in here and buy in are the ones we will go to war with. If kids are chasing money, we don’t need to be recruiting them. We feel we have a unique place here in Statesboro where we have great crowds and people can connect with you. A lot of people are passionate about baseball here and they care about these kids. That’s one reason a lot of former players stick around and decide to live in Statesboro.”
