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ATHENS — Georgia baseball is primed for its early-season showdown with rival Florida after a players-only meeting and a call-out from the head coach last weekend.

The No. 23-ranked Bulldogs (19-6, 3-3) play the No. 16-ranked Gators (18-7, 3-3) at 8 o’clock at Foley Field (TV: ESPN2).

“It’s still early in the SEC, but it’s a big weekend,” said Ben Anderson, a graduate student who is one of the team captains.

“We’re at home, there’s going to be a big crowd, and we want to play well and win the series.”

Anderson led SEC hitters over the past week with a .529 batting average, and he’ll likely need to stay hot out of his leadoff spot for the Bulldogs to beat the Gators.

Florida is coming off a 6-3 win over No. 5 Florida State last Tuesday and has looked like the better and tougher team this season.

The Gators are out-hitting UGA (.295-.289), have hit more home runs (49-25), have a lower staff ERA (3.79-4.75) and superior fielding percentage (.980-.974).

Georgia baseball coach Scott Stricklin, who called out his team for not handling the cold weather last weekend in dropping two of three to unranked Kentucky, makes no secret of the Bulldogs’ glaring weakness.

“We need to see someone other than Jonathan Cannon step up on the mound, that’s the biggest thing,” said Stricklin, whose team has averaged giving up one run in the two SEC games Cannon has started but is allowing an average of nearly 15 runs in the four games against SEC competition that he hasn’t.

Cannon was at the front of the room for a players’ only meeting last Saturday night in Lexington, as the Bulldogs pitchers looked to find their groove.

“It was a good time for us to do a little bit of self-reflecting, because we’re in this together,” said Cannon, who is 5-1 with a 1.96 ERA and just one walk (intentional) in 41.1 innings pitched.

“I think everyone has a newfound confidence in themselves, and we’re going to move forward.”

Stricklin referred to “the law of 68″ to make his point about his pitchers needing to throw strikes.

“Sixty-eight percent of balls put in play are outs, so if you just throw it down the middle, you have a 68 percent chance of making an out,” Stricklin said.

“You can’t defend a walk, you can’t defend a hit by pitch or a wild pitch, but you can defend a ball in the strike zone, unless if goes over the fence.

“And if you’re walking guys, solo home runs turn into three-run home runs.”

The over-arching theme is that this Georgia team, as experienced as it is, needs to become mentally tougher or risk missing out on the NCAA tournament as it did last season.

“Bottom line is you have to overcome adversity, because in this league it’s going to come at you every single inning, not just every game,” Stricklin said. Every inning, you have to respond and overcome. This group can do it because we have so many older guys.”

Cannon will pitch the Friday night game in the Florida series (6 p.m.), while Stricklin has not yet announced the starter for the 2 p.m. series finale on Saturday.