Georgia raced out to a 15-3 record in the first four weeks of the season against a schedule that, to be kind, was not very challenging. Only two of those 18 games were against teams with a winning record (Kennesaw State and Western Carolina), and all but one were played at Foley Field in Athens, Ga.
So it was fair to ask how this team would perform on the road. The answer: quite well.
The Bulldogs opened SEC play last month by taking two of three at Texas A&M and last weekend, in their second road series of the season, swept then-No. 4 Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss., in what could end up being the most impressive series win of the season by any team in college baseball.
Winner Winner Winner#GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/BfezbIVBjz
— Georgia Baseball (@BaseballUGA) April 4, 2026
Georgia, which also has series wins over Tennessee and South Carolina, is alone in first place in the SEC at 10-2, one game up on Texas and two up on Alabama.
The Bulldogs continue to lead the nation in home runs with 93 (21 more than any other team), and they rank second in OPS (1.081) and fourth in runs scored (310). Second baseman Tre Phelps and catcher Daniel Jackson are both hitting over .400, while Jackson leads the team with 16 home runs and Phelps is tied for second with 13.
The pitching staff, loaded with transfers, is far from the best in the league, but it’s obviously been good enough. Georgia ranks 10th in the SEC in both ERA (4.37) and batting average against (.235).
The Dawgs have been a top-eight national seed in each of Wes Johnson’s two seasons but have failed to reach the College World Series. In 2024, they lost to NC State in the Super Regionals, and last season, they bowed out with a 1-2 record in the Athens Regional.
Will this be the year Georgia breaks through and gets to Omaha for the first time since 2008?
Around the horn
UCLA swept USC at Jackie Robinson Stadium in the most anticipated matchup between the two cross-town rivals in decades.
The Bruins, ranked No. 1 in the nation in every major poll, pulled away late with seven runs in the eighth to win 12-4 on Friday night. On Saturday, they broke an 8-8 tie in the bottom of the eighth when Mulivai Levu scored on a wild pitch en route to a 9-8 win. They completed the sweep on Sunday with a 10-4 victory.
It was an impressive offensive display by UCLA, which scored a total of 31 runs against a USC pitching staff that entered the weekend with a 2.64 ERA, the lowest in the nation.
The Bruins are 29-2 overall and 15-0 in the Big Ten. Nebraska, which swept Penn State over the weekend, is 11-1 in the league and the only team within four games of UCLA.
USC dropped to 27-6 overall and 10-5 in the Big Ten.
LSU sophomore catcher Cade Arrambide entered Sunday with a modest stat line in 2026: .256 average with four home runs and 16 RBIs. He is now hitting .295 with eight home runs and 23 RBIs. That’s after an epic performance at Tennessee in which he went 5 for 6 with a program-record four home runs and seven RBIs.
Arrambide’s first bomb of the game didn’t come until the fifth inning, a solo shot that trimmed Tennessee’s lead to 5-1. He homered again in the seventh to make it 5-3 and in the 11th to give LSU a 6-5 lead. The Vols tied it in the bottom of the 11th, but LSU exploded for 10 runs in the 12th — the second, third, fourth and fifth coming on an Arrimbide grand slam — to record a 16-6 win to secure the series, two games to one.
LSU coach Jay Johnson was not around to witness Arrambide’s final two home runs after getting thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes in the top of the ninth inning.
The Tigers, who rallied to win Friday’s game as well, improved to 6-6 in the league. Tennessee dropped to 4-8.
All 4 of Arrambide’s HRs today 🔥 pic.twitter.com/IlRfZLCD6k
— 11Point7 College Baseball (@11point7) April 5, 2026
Georgia Tech maintained its lead in the ACC by sweeping Cal in Berkeley to improve to 26-5 overall and 9-3 in the league.
The Yellow Jackets continue to mash — they scored 33 runs over the weekend — but they have also pitched well over the past few weeks. In their current eight-game winning streak, which also includes three games against NC State and a midweek game against Auburn, they have allowed a total of 19 runs. That followed a stretch in which they gave up at least nine runs in five of seven games against Power 4 competition.
We’ll learn if Tech can sustain this success on the mound over the next three weeks when it plays at Florida State (9-3 ACC) and then hosts North Carolina (11-4 ACC) and Wake Forest (8-7 ACC).
With the regular season just past the halfway point, it’s a good time to check in on some of the top high school prospects who made it to campus. Below are the five highest-ranked position players and six highest-ranked pitchers (Vanderbilt left-hander Aiden Stillman missed the first two months of the season with an undisclosed injury and made his season debut on Friday at Texas A&M), according to the Perfect Game rankings, who spurned the 2025 MLB Draft.
Pitchers
RankNameSchoolW-LERAWHIPIPK/BB
21
Jack Bauer, LHP
Mississippi State
2-0
6.43
2.000
7.0
11/6
22
Cam Appenzeller, LHP
Tennessee
4-0
1.15
0.670
31.1
35/4
34
Angel Cervantes, RHP
UCLA
2-0
5.40
1.527
18.1
12/5
38
Noah Yoder, RHP
Virginia
2-0
1.45
1.339
18.2
23/12
46
Aiden Stillman, LHP
Vanderbilt
0-1
27.00
4.500
0.2
0/2
47
Sam Cozart, RPH
Texas
5-0
2.08
0.593
30.1
41/6
Hitters
RkName, PosSchoolGPAvgOPSHRRBI
25
Josh Gibbs, SS
Kennesaw State
15
.267
.673
0
5
28
Owen Jenkins, C
Kentucky
24
.258
.691
1
10
30
Trent Grindlinger, C
Tennesseee
15
.429
1.026
0
9
31
Ethin Bingaman, OF/RHP
Auburn
28
.276
.804
3
15
32
Anthony Pack Jr., OF
Texas
31
.324
.982
4
28
Kansas rallied from three runs down in the bottom of the ninth to beat Utah on Thursday night, and did so with four solo home runs. Noah Bieniek from 11point7.com explains why this win was extra special for KU coach Dan Fitzgerald.
Kansas Baseball Hit Four 9th Inning Home Runs to win a WILD Game with a fantastic meaning behind it.
Here is the Max & Dan Fitzgerald story and how a College Baseball Autism Awareness game came to be.@KUBaseball @11point7 pic.twitter.com/dniT01XTCr
— Noah Bieniek (Bee-Nick) (@NoahB77_) April 3, 2026
It’s safe to say that UCF is for real. The Knights are 10-2 in the Big 12 — alone in first place — after taking two of three at West Virginia.
On Friday night, five pitchers combined for a three-hit shutout in UCF’s 5-0 win. Braden Smith got the start but was hit in the head by a line drive in the first inning and taken to a local hospital. UCF coach Rich Wallace said on Saturday morning that Smith was in “stable condition and in good spirits.” He was able to return to Orlando on Sunday but wasn’t permitted to fly with the team, so he made the 12-plus-hour drive with Wallace and Jack Zyska, the assistant director of player development, in a rented SUV.
West Virginia rallied from down 10-2 to win Game 2, 11-10, with four runs in the bottom of the ninth. But UCF responded with a 5-1 win on Sunday, limiting the Mountaineers to only four hits.
UCF, which went 9-21 in the Big 12 last season, has series wins over Oklahoma State, TCU, Arizona and West Virginia. The Knights are one game up on Kansas and two up on West Virginia.
In the “this probably doesn’t mean anything, but it’s mildly interesting category,” none of the top four home run hitters in college baseball have transferred at any point in their careers:
Quinton Coats, So., Cincinnati, 20 HRs
Tague Davis, So., Louisville, 19 HRs
Landon Hairston, So., Arizona State, 18 HRs
Kollin Ritchie, Jr., Oklahoma State, 18 HRs
Last season, none of the top four home run hitters began their careers at their 2025 school:
Boston Smith, Sr., Wright State (Cincinnati), 26 HRs
Mason Neville, Jr., Oregon (Arkansas), 26 HRs
Andrew Fisher, Jr., Tennessee (Ole Miss, Duke), 26 HRs
Matt Schark, Sr., Southern Illinois (Jefferson College), 24 HRs
Georgia’s series win at Mississippi State was the only sweep in the SEC, one week after seven of the league’s eight series ended in sweeps.
Perhaps the most surprising result, other than Georgia taking all three in Starkville, was Missouri’s series win at Kentucky. The Tigers, who entered the weekend 1-8 in the SEC, won 5-4 on Friday night and 5-2 on Sunday. They are now 0-6 at home and 3-3 on the road in league play.
Kentucky, meanwhile, is 6-6 in the SEC and one of 10 teams in the league between 5-7 and 7-5 after four weeks of conference action.
And finally
• Three weeks ago, we checked in on UCSB right-hander Jackson Flora, who at the time was 5-0 with a 1.15 ERA and 0.860 WHIP. Well, the junior has not given up an earned run since, running his scoreless streak to 33 1/3 innings. For the season, Flora — the No. 2 prospect in Keith Law’s most recent 2026 MLB Draft rankings — is 6-0 with a 0.69 ERA, 0.783 WHIP, 65 strikeouts and 15 walks in 52 1/3 innings.
• Vanderbilt catcher/DH Colin Barczi hit three home runs in Thursday’s 14-8 win at Texas A&M — the second time he’s accomplished the feat this season (he also hit three in the season-opener vs. TCU at Globe Life Field). Barczi, who missed 18 games with a shoulder injury, has not hit any home runs this season outside of those two games.
• Florida State will be without star first baseman Myles Bailey, who suffered a season-ending ankle injury on Feb. 28 against Duke. Bailey, a sophomore, was hitting .363 with 13 home runs and a 1.494 OPS.
• UAB, which hasn’t been to a Regional since 2012, has won nine straight overall and is in first place in the American at 7-2 — one game up on UTSA and East Carolina.
• Jacksonville State is in fine company, joining No. 1 UCLA as the only two teams in the nation that are undefeated in their league with at least 12 games played. The Gameocks are 12-0 in Conference USA with sweeps over Sam Houston, Western Kentucky, Louisiana Tech and Middle Tennessee.
• Yale sophomore Jack Ohman bounced back from two poor starts to throw six shutout innings in the Bulldogs’ 12-7 win at Princeton. It was a very encouraging development for the preseason All-American, who gave up a combined 14 earned runs in his previous two outings.