Georgia softball set to ride arms of Stratford's Avant and Jones County's Bass

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com
 

          The good news for Georgia is that it won the season series against Florida.

          And that the Bulldogs are 4-1 against the Gators in the last postseason meetings.

          And that Georgia won 3-2 over Florida in the 2010 Women’s College World Series.

          The Bulldogs hope all that doesn’t catch up to them when they take on Florida at 7 p.m. Thursday in the WCWS in Oklahoma City.

          All WCWS games will be on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN 3. The Bulldogs-Gators are on ESPN 2.

          Georgia is 48-11 and Florida is 55-9.

          The series is split into two brackets. UCLA and Florida State join the Gators and Bulldogs.

          Georgia is 2-2 against teams in the field, 2-1 against Florida and 0-1 against Oregon, an 8-3 loss in the second game of the season.

          Florida is No. 2 and Georgia No. 7 in the double elimination tournament. The winner plays at 9:30 p.m. Friday against the UCLA-Florida State winner, the loser at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

          Jones County’s Kylie Bass is one of four Bulldogs back from the 2016 WCWS team, along with Cortni Emanuel, Brittany Gray, and Alyssa DiCarlo.

          Emanuel, recently named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Southeast Region team and as a NFCA Golden Shoe winner, is the nation’s top base stealer. DiCarlo leads Georgia with 20 homers, helping her to all-region honors.

          Bass and Stratford alum Mary Wilson Avant are Georgia’s pitching duo, both picking up the slack after the season-ending injury to ace Brittany Gray.

          Gray was 16-1 with a .48 ERA and 12 complete games when she went down April 9 with a bicep injury.

          Avant has started 19 games and pitched in 30, racking up a 12-3 record with a 1.65 ERA and opponents’ average of .206.

          Bass has started 13 and pitched in 24, and is 15-3 with a 1.84 ERA and OBA of .184.

          Each has two saves. Avant has one more strikeout but 21 more walks in 11 more innings pitched.

          One of Bass’s losses came in a 5-1 defeat to Florida on March 18, dropping her to 10-2.

          Avant’s first decision of the season, a loss, didn’t come until March 24 against Mississippi State.

          Avant is 41st  nationally in ERA and 95th in hits allowed.

           Bass is 36th in hits allowed and strikeout-to-walk ratio, 59th in walks per seven innings, and 64th in ERA.

          It’s a unique pairing, the 5-10 Avant and 5-0 Bass.

          “I myself know, dynamite comes in small packages,” Georgia head coach Lu Harris-Champer said, according to a Tweet from ESPN’s Holly Rowe.