March 9, 2010

Recap | Box Score

Head Coach Steve Smith

On pitching eight players:
"It works out well if your pitchers will throw strikes. It's not an easy thing for an opposing group of hitters to ever settle in. They had their opportunities - I don't know how many they left on - but they had a few opportunities. The guys did a nice job and I thought we did a nice job at the plate."

On Gregg Glime:
"He hasn't caught some of those guys nearly as much as he has caught some of the others, and that is one of the good things about a night like this - he gets to work with them and so he gets a feel for what they are doing. If you look at our catchers in terms of their own personal ERA, Gregg is leading that group. Some of that is because of the guys he is catching, but he's only caught (Logan) Verrett one time. He does do a good job back there. He is a good guy to have behind the plate on the field for you."

On the offensive production:
"I thought we would need it, because honestly they can swing the bat, and the park is playing pretty small right now. I mean it was hot today, the ground is hard, the winds blowing out and the way the thing started - we give up four runs in the first two innings - it looked like we were going to have to score a bunch. I am really pleased with how we managed the game on the mound. They did a nice job and we played good defense behind them."

On Willie Kempf:
"He is not going to start until Sunday, so he is the one guy of the weekend group that was in good shape today. He could do just what he did, and it allowed me not to have to throw (Brooks) Pinckard or Joey (Hainsfurther)."

Junior Shortstop Landis Ware

On if he knew it was a home run when he hit it:
"I didn't. I don't hit enough of them to know exactly. I don't do a very good job of running around and making it look good. I hit it on a line and I wasn't sure until I heard the crowd cheer a little bit."

On the offensive production:
"Everybody knows our pitching is going to be good. They have been. The doubts are with our offense, our hitting, and nights like tonight give us all of the confidence. Up through the lineup everybody has been seeing the ball pretty well. We've got one more weekend before conference, and I just think it builds our confidence before then."

On this weekend's series:
"Obviously we had a tough little spurt a few games ago, but recently we are on a pretty good streak. For conference you want that confidence just that we know we can win and expect to win every day. In this last little four-game win streak, we expect to win every day. I think that is what we need going into conference, because it's going to be tough like it is every year."

On the play of Jake Miller at third base €¦
"He plays really well over there. We all like him over there. His confidence as a freshman is huge, but we have a lot of freshman playing actually. They are playing really well. It is really good to see.

Freshman Outfielder Logan Vick

On his home run:
"It was a fastball. He threw me a ball the first pitch. I was late getting my foot down, so I was thinking if I get my foot down and he throws me that pitch, I am going to rip it. I got to the ballpark and I felt today was a good day. I was just really loose and I was hitting the ball really well in batting practice. I saw it really well out of the hand, so I just took a rip. I saw it go up. I was pretty certain it was gone, but I wasn't going to take any chances and I was just sprinting around the bases just in case it came down and hit the wall or something."

On the offensive production:
"We are a good hitting team. We did struggle for those four games in a row. I don't know what got into us. We were just a little sluggish, and now we are just really clicking. We are getting timely hits, which is what really matters. When people are in scoring position, we are getting those timely hits and scoring a lot of runs; that is what our offense is capable of doing."

On his ability to hit to all fields:
"They were usually trying to pound me in. In these last couple of games, they were going away. I was hitting off the tee in the cages at night and I was putting the tee away, setting up, working on that outside pitch, and I am seeing it really well now."