ATHENS — Georgia baseball Charlie Condon is ready to put his hard work to use with a trip to the College World Series on the line this weekend.

The No 7-national seed Bulldogs (42-15) play No 10-national seed North Carolina State (36-20) at noon (TV: ESPNU) in Game One of a best-of-three NCAA Tournament Super Regional at Foley Field.

“Everybody believes that they belong here,” Condon said on Friday as UGA ran through its final practice before attempting to become the first Georgia baseball team to make it to Omaha since Gordon Beckham helped lead the 2008 team to a runner-up finish.

“That’s Coach Wes’ (Johnson) biggest thing; believe in yourself and know that we’ve put in the work to be where we are,” Condon said. “Things don’t happen just for nothing. Things happen for a reason, and a lot of that reason is the work we’ve continued to put in and everybody buying into the fact that we belong in an SEC program and one that’s going to have success.”

The Bulldogs swept through their NCAA Baseball Tournament Regional last weekend in Athens, coming from behind to beat Army 8-7, knocking off UNC-Wilmington 11-2 and staging a late rally to score a dramatic 8-6 win over rival Georgia Tech in 10 innings.

“We just love playing baseball, we enjoy it, we have a lot of fun,” said Johnson, a first-time, first-year head coach who has taken the strong nucleus former coach Scott Stricklin left behind and built a championship caliber program with 18 transfers and 10 freshmen.

“Hopefully they see we never really panic, no matter what is going on, good or bad. We just keep playing the game and have fun doing it.”

Condon, who vowed at the start of the season Georgia would be in the postseason and bring a different energy to the field, said Johnson’s message has been incorporated into the dugout and become a part of the Georgia baseball team’s DNA.

“Just that kind of mindset, the growth and obviously the physical development with the staff in all of us,” Condon said. “But everybody really believes in themselves right now. I think that’s the biggest thing.”

Condon enters the NCAA Baseball Tournament Super Regional leading the nation in home runs (36) batting average (.445) and slugging percentage (1.036) while Athens Regional MVP and UGA lead-off hitter Corey Collins is the toughest out in college baseball, leading the country in on-base percentage (.583).

Georgia, ironically, beat Georgia Tech in its 2008 Regional and North Carolina State in the ensuring 2008 Super Regional to advance to its most recent College World Series trip.

“I’ve talked to Gordon (Beckham) some about that, but I definitely wasn’t in touch with that in 2008 (laughing),” said Condon, a Marietta product. “I was in kindergarten. But it’s been awesome to hear Gordon tell those stories. The differences and similarities between that year and this year is definitely pretty cool.”