NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional: Game 2 Notes & Quotes
6/2/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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2006 NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional |
Game 01 ?? Troy 10 - Southern Miss 8, 9 innings
Post-game Notes and Quotes
Friday, June 2, 2006
Troy University
Head Coach Bobby Pierce
“I’m very proud of our team because of the long delays and how difficult it is to keep your focus going. You saw tonight what I’ve seen from this team for the entire season, a very determined team that keeps battling, keeps competing. But you never know with those types of delays how that’s going to affect your ball club. I actually thought J.J. (pitcher J.J. Whetsel) was better off of the delay. I thought he threw the ball better. His arm was looser. That’s not always the case. You sit over there and try to make decisions and hope a guy is as affective as he was before the delay. When he came in and threw the first fastball by Atkins, I think was the guy at the plate with a two-two count when the delay happened, I felt pretty good about it. And he was throwing the ball well. He just didn’t get a couple of balls up and they hit a couple of home runs off of him late. He didn’t want to come out of the game but when you’ve got a guy like (Josh) Dew sitting there behind him who’s done it late for us all year, I had to go to him at that point. But I’m really proud of our team because those are tough games to play??first game of a regional tournament with the intensity level of where it’s at. A lot of times you’ll see teams start off the first three innings on a real high and then you’ll see them kind of sink out of that because it’s difficult to stay up there for nine innings, much less for nine innings over six hours. And I thought our team loosened up after the first delay. A lot of people said, well, we had some momentum going in on the back end of Blake Green’s three-run homer, and that’s right, but I thought Southern Miss was a looser team to start the game probably because they have more experience in regional tournaments than ourselves. But I thought after the delay we came out and kind of got into our ballgame, so, from that viewpoint, I think it might have been an advantage for us. The second delay was just kind of a guessing game as to whether or not we were going to continue the game and I think both teams really wanted to see that happen versus having to come back in the morning to finish the game. So we were happy they got the field ready and the rain held off long enough for us to finish the game,”
# 10 Blake Green, left fielder:
“I think we did the same thing we’ve done all year. We got behind early, but there’s never a sense of panic in the dugout. Everybody just kept doing what we did, a few base runners here and there and then we were able to get some shots on the bat that were right at people and then everything just started falling into place for us. A few big hits here and there and we got some crooked numbers on the board.”
On the rain delays: “That’s a first for me, I must say. Everybody’s hungry, I think that’s the main thing. We’re just glad to come out with the ??w’ and that makes it a little bit sweeter.”
#17 J.J. Whetsel, Pitcher:
“We came out a little slow. The rain delay helped us relax a little. We hung out around the dugout, played a little two ball, that’s something we do. We came back out after the rain delay and we started hitting the ball.”
On how the rain delay & conditions affected team: “Well, you’re on and off, on and off. I don’t know how many times we had to stop, two or three, but that was to our benefit. We came back swinging the bats well.”
Troy University Notes
?? Junior right-hander Clegg Snipes turned in his shortest outing as a starter this season. Snipes worked just 2.2 innings against USM, allowing four runs on eight hits. His previous shortest start was at Western Kentucky on April 7-8 (the game was stopped by rain and continued the next day) when he worked 3.2 innings, allowing 10 earned runs on 11 hits.
?? Tom King’s third inning single gave the junior sole possession of the national hits lead for 2006.
?? Blake Green continued his torrid hitting of late with a three-run homer in the third inning, tying the score at 4-4. Counting the Sun Belt Tournament Blake has 12 hits in his last 19 at bats over five games.
?? Troy’s 10-8 victory was the Trojans first NCAA Division I Regional win. Troy was 0-2 in the 1995 Atlantic I Regional at Tallahassee, Fla., and 0-2 at the 1997 South II Regional at Tuscaloosa.
?? Troy is now 26-0 this season when scoring in double figures and 39-0 when leading after seven innings.
?? Troy’s 11-game win streak is tied with Rice and TCU for the second longest in the country behind Fresno State’s 16-game streak.
University of Southern Mississippi
Head Coach Corky Palmer
“It was a long game. Both teams battled hard. We made a lot of mistakes. We only had one error, but we made a lot of mistakes. We cannot afford mistakes. To win at this level, you can’t make mistakes.”
Shortstop No. 12 Brian Dozier
“I can’t remember playing a game that long. You win some, you lose some. It was really more mental than physical. They got it done after the first rain delay and we didn’t.”
Second Base No. 7 Trey Sutton
“Their pitcher did a good job of shutting us down after the delay.”
On coming back: “We’ve got a good offensive club. Dozier got it started with a homer in the eighth. Then their guy comes in and gets a clutch home run. We tried to battle back in the ninth but we didn’t get it done.”
Southern Miss Notes
?? This game marked Southern Miss’ fourth-straight NCAA Regional Appearance and seventh overall. The Golden Eagles have dropped the first game in three of the last four regional appearances.
?? With the first of two hits tonight, Marc Maddox became Southern Miss’ all-time hit leader with 293 and later hit his 294th. He passed Jeff Cook, who had 292 from 2000-03.
?? Brian Dozier hit his second home run of the season tonight
?? Toddric Johnson hit his 11th home run of the season
