Sunday's Central Georgia Daily News 'n Notes: Mercer falls, Acuna hurt in Braves win; Piedmont wins another GISA trophy; UGA gets NCAA host berth; SEC meetings coming up

Sunday's Central Georgia - and of interest to Central Georgia - news and notes, compiled from staff reports, email reports, the web, and social media.

Mercer falls in SoCon Tournament finale

          Mercer isn't used to seeing an opponent crack double digits against the Bears in a game.

          Certainly not in an inning

          But Samford powered its way to 11 runs in the fifth and beat Mercer 14-4 in seven innings for the SoCon Tournament title and NCAA bid.

          Story in the Area/state college scoreboard in The Latest Coverage.

Piedmont rolls to fifth straight state title

          Forced into a winner-take-all game by losing the opener of the GISA Class AA best-of-three series with Windsor, Piedmont took all.

          The Cougars started early with three runs in the first and cruised to a 10-0 five-inning win over Windsor Sunday at Mercer's OrthoGeorgia Park for their fifth straight state title.

          Windsor has been the victim in two of them.

          The Cougars were clutch, starting with three in the first with two outs. Rob Allgood singled and Chase Porter walked, both scoring n Sam Wright's triple, which was followed by Zach Spivey's RBI single to center.

          Tate Marks added an RBI double in the second with two outs, and the Cougars got one in the third on a hit batter, single, fielder's choice grounder and single by Owen Brady.

          Windsor got a runner on in four of the five innings, but couldn't do anything with them.

          The Cougars got three in the fourth on a walk, hit batter, Porter double, intentional walk, sacrifice fly and grounder.

          The walk-off run came on a walk to Spivey in the bottom of the fifth.

          Spivey had two hits and three RBI, and Marks and Wright two RBI each.

          Wright and Porter teamed for the three-hitter.

          Piedmont finished 21-7-1 and Windsor 18-7.

Braves, Folty crused past Red Sox, Acuna suffers serious injury

          Mike Foltynewicz gave Atlanta the long stint it needed form him and the Braves bats were working, but there wasn't much celebrating after the 7-1 win.

          Rookie Ronald Acuna suffered a knee injury in the seventh inning, and was taken to a local hospital. He also reportedly suffered lower back pain on a play where he was running to first and stumbled hard while trying to beat out a grounder.

          He fell awkwardly after crossing the base, coming down at a bad angle while looking to the umpire and signaling safe.

          The Braves expect to announce results of the MRI on Monday.

Georgia an NCAA baseball regional host site

          As expected, and despite a weak SEC Tournament appearance, Georgia is one of the 16 regional sites for the NCAA baseball tournament.

          Athens is one of 12 sites from an SEC or ACC state, with three in North Carolina (UNC, East Carolina, and NC State) and Florida (Stetson, Florida, and Florida State) and two in South Carolina (Clemson and Coastal Carolina).

          Stetson is a former Atlantic Sun rival of Mercer.

          The national seeds, and at-large teams and full pairings will be announced at noon Monday on ESPNU.

          Baseball America projected Sunday night that Georgia would host Purdue, Oklahoma, and Southern Conference champ Samford. Georgia Tech isn't expected to get a bid, having fallen to 56th in the pre-Sunday NCAA RPI.

SEC meetings coming up, typically full of topics

          The covered-like-media-days gathering of SEC athletics officials, coaches, and administrators starts Tuesday in Destin, Florida, although tropical storm Alberto may affect the schedule.

          There are, as always, a variety of topics expected to be discussed, as per stories in the Athens Banner-Herald, Baton Rouge Advocate, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Charleston Post & Courier, Gainesville Sun, among others.

Last Week's Signings

          West Laurens boys basketball player Keonta Tyler will continue his career at Albany Tech.

          Five Houston County baseball players took part Monday in a signing ceremony.

          Logan Morris and Chandler Ring are headed to East Georgia State, a junior college in Swainsboro that had Central Georgians Case Matthews (West Laurens) and Parker Stahlman (Perry) on the 2018 roster.

          Dillon Toms signed with Lee University, a member of the Gulf South Conference

          Conner Martin will play for Wilson College, a Division III program in Chambersburg, Pa. And Jackson Jones signed with Covenant College, a Division III program in Lookout Mountain, Ga. whose 2018 roster included Stratford's John Mitchell. ...

          Perry's John Micah Law has signed to play baseball at Augusta University.

Last Week's Honor Roll

          Georgia College is still taking in baseball honors.

          The latest list is led by Charlie Hecht, named All-Southeast pitcher of the year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.

          Peach Belt player of the year Logan Mattix was a first-team pick, while Matthew Miller and Bradly Cammack made the second team.

          Five Bobcats were named to the all-region team by the national college baseball writers and the Division II Conference Commissioners Association.

          Mattix, Hecht, and utility Nate Schmal made the first team on both lists, and Miller and outfielder Wesley Wommack the second team on both.

          Hecht was named the region's pitcher of the year by both groups, with D2CCA tabbing Mattix as the region player of the year.