SEC Tournament: Notes & Quotes, Baseball vs. LSU
5/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
NOTES & QUOTES
SEC Tournament
Game 3
May 24, 2006
Alabama vs. LSU
Alabama Head Coach Jim Wells
"[LSU pitcher Clay] Dirks obviously pitched really good today. It's hard when you get only four hits in a college baseball game. I thought we might have been able to get one or two more. Everything is really magnified in a close ball game. The middle part of our lineup has put up a lot of zeroes lately. You' re not going to win if you don't get anything out of the middle of your lineup."
Alabama center fielder Emeel Salem
"We couldn't solve [Clay] Dirks today. He pitched really well. We looked up in the eighth and we only had two hits. We just really couldn't get anything going offensively. He threw a lot of off-speed pitches with guys on base. He is deceiving because he doesn't have a lot of velocity on his pitches. He hit his spots and made pitches to win the game."
Alabama pinch hitter Kent Matthes
"I thought we had a good defensive performance. LSU is a good ball club. We haven't been able to capitalize on opportunities early in the game, and we didn't take advantage of those today, either."
LSU Head Coach Smoke Laval
"This game shows how tough the SEC is top to bottom. Not only that, it's hard to get 27 outs as we saw at the end of the game. Clay (Dirks) threw a nice game and kept us in it. Once I saw he was in control, we wanted to tack them on one at a time.What's exciting about coming to the SEC Tournament is letting freshman play. (Buzzy Haydel) works just as hard as everyone else. It's just game experience. Don't let the game beat you, let the team beat you."
LSU pitcher Clay Dirks
"After Florida last week, we said this is a new season. That's what we did, played with fire and intensity. We came to win. We've had bad fortune the past couple of years in the tournament, but not this year. We came in with goals in mind and this is a business trip. We're here to play. We're here to win."
LSU third baseman Will Harris
"Clay kept us in there. We didn't score as many runs as we'd like, but Clay kept us in by pitching seven innings consistently. It feels good to start on the right foot, but we still have three or four more games to win."
NOTES
LSU pitch hitter/third baseman Buzzy Haydel recorded his first
career home run in the top of the 9th.
Alabama pitch hitter Kent Matthes recorded his first career home run
with a two-run shot over the right field wall. It was the second two-run
home run recorded by a pitch hitter in today's first round.
LSU breaks a five game SEC tournament losing streak.
Alabama has lost back-to-back opening tournament rounds for the
first time since the SEC went to the current format (1996). The Crimson
Tide lost back-to-back openers in 1994-1995.
LSU will advance to face the winner of the Ole Miss/Arkansas game
Thursday at 8:00 p.m.
Alabama enters the losers bracket and will face the loser of the Ole
Miss/Arkansas game Thursday at 1:00 p.m.
