In the second elimination game of the Athens Regional, the FAU Owls are eliminated from the tournament as they get shutout by the University of Georgia Bulldogs, 13-0.

While we talked about the trends throughout the regionals about the Owls and what they needed to fix, the offense wasn’t one of them until today. They scored zero runs and only recorded two hits the whole day, a stat line rare to a team with a total batting average above .300. The two hits came from Andru Summerall and Wilfredo Alvarez.

All credit to University of Georgia pitcher Tim Elliot who pitched all nine innings, striking out eight Owls and only allowed the two hits as mentioned before. He did that in a total of 98 pitches, total cruise control throughout. But the Owls knew beforehand that Georgia’s pitching staff is one of the best in the country, with Elliot being their third arm in the rotation.

For FAU, Mike Ruff took the mound today in hopes of recreating his performance against WKU where he punched out 11. However, Ruff struggled against the Bulldogs as he pitched five innings, striking out five, but letting go of six earned runs. Problems continued to spread through the bullpen as Dylan O’ Connell and Vince Coletti were both part of the avalanche of offense by Georgia.

We knew we had to play a clean game (against the) No. 4 national seed and we got a zero in the first and I was hoping we could get some runs,” head coach John McCormack said to FAUSports.com. “(Elliot) kept us off-balance all day and then their offense capitalized. I thought Mike (Ruff) did okay, made three or four bad pitches and they capitalized on him, and then it just kind of got away from us and Georgia got it rolling.”

Even though the Owls finished their 2019 season in rough fashion, it was once again a successful season as coach McCormack and FAU finished 41-21, crowned regular season champs and got a bid in the NCAA tournament.

While the season is over, FAU baseball news is far from it as the MLB Draft is tomorrow and continues Tuesday and Wednesday as seniors and some draft-eligible juniors could hear their names called. Be sure to check back here at the University Press for coverage of the draft.

Seniors who played their final game as an Owl: Jordan Poore, Blake Sanderson, Zach Schneider, Nick Swan, Diamond Johnson, Gunnar Lambert, Joe Montes, Richie Nizza and Jacob Pino.