Georgia softball season comes to rocky stop in Tennessee Super Regional

A tearful Coach Tony Baldwin bid farewell to the Georgia softball season on Friday in Knoxville, his Bulldogs on the short end of a 2-1 final score against Tennessee.

“As I said to the team at the end,” Baldwin said, “I wish I had time to punch into Chat GPT for the right thing to say, and I don’t know I have all that right now.”

The No. 7-seeded Lady Vols (47-10) won the opening game of the best-of-three series over 10th-seeded UGA (41-20) on Thursday by a 3-1 count and now head to Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series for the second time in as many years and the 10th time in school history.

“It was not the outcome we came here looking for, and hats off to Tennessee for that,” said Baldwin, who was promoted from his assistant position to head coach after the 2021 season, leading the Bulldogs to the Super Regional (Softball’s “Sweet 16”) the past three campaigns.

“When the season comes to an end you are just thankful and proud of the season, it’s a long haul….,” Baldwin, 53, said. “The thing that’s hard about this time, you don’t get another week with this group.

“This group was everything I could ask for as a coach, and what they did to represent our university, and our program and our fanbase, that’s what makes it hurt.”

Baldwin will say goodbye to two seniors — catcher Sarah Gordon and All-SEC outfielder Jayden Goodwin, who led the team in hitting.

Gordon had a .407 batting average and 12 home runs with 45 RBI, and Goodwin hit .404 with 11 home runs, 45 RBI and a team-high five stolen bases.

“I’m just so proud of this group for what they’ve done,” said Goodwin, who has grown close to Baldwin and his family since knowing them as a 12-year-old.

“This group means the world to me, from the seniors to the freshman, they are some of the best people I’ll ever know.”

Gordon, who began her career as the ACC Freshman of the Year at Louisville, expressed her appreciation for her three years in Athens.

“When I went in the portal I always dreamed of playing in the SEC, it’s the best conference in the country and playing on this stage, I am so grateful the Lord led me to Georgia,” said Gordon, who played her high school softball in Lexington, South Carolina.

“This is the place I’m supposed to be. It’s a place that values who you are as a person over what you’re doing in the field, and it is just amazing.”

The Bulldogs were hoping to win the series over Tennessee and make their first trip to WCWS since 2021, the final season of coach Lu Harris-Champer’s 21-year stint in Athens.

Game Two starter Randi Roelling (18-10) did her part for Georgia, pitching her way out of a bases-loaded jam in the first inning before Tennessee’s Sophia Knight blasted a two-run home run over the right field wall in the second inning to stake the Lady Vols out to a 2-0 lead.

The Bulldogs didn’t manage a run until the bottom of the seventh inning — they were the designated home team in Game Two — when Emily Digby tripled to open the final frame and scored on a wild pitch.

UGA, however, was unable to get another runner on base against Sage Mardjetko, the 2023 USA Today High School Sports Awards National Softball Player of the Year who started her career at South Carolina before transferring to Tennessee in 2025.

Mardjetko (14-2) came on in relief of starter Erin Nuwer in the second inning, allowing just two hits while fanning nine in 5 2/3 innings.

Roelling, a second-year transfer from Cal, allowed five hits and struck out six in pitching the complete game.

The day before, UGA’s first-year transfer from UCLA, Addisen Fisher (12-6), gave up five hits and two runs while fanning five in her 3 1/3 innings of work to take the loss in the Super Regional opener on Thursday.

Baldwin noted the biggest issue in the lack of run support in this series was the lack of timely hitting.