June 5, 2004

The Citadel Quotes

Coach Fred Jordan
Chip Cannon’s swing in the second inning was big for us. Covington’s home run in the sixth inning was huge because it helped us to pad our lead a little bit. John Ellis was John Ellis today. In his first six innings, he did nothing short of dominate them out there. All of his pitches were working. He kind of wilted there at the end of the sixth inning, but he refused to come out and made it through their rally. This is a big win, and we’re looking forward to another one tonight.

(on pitching Jonathan Ellis today and not last night)
You can’t second guess yourself or your decisions. Last weeken d, he pitched back-to-back complete games to get us here. He deserved an extra day of rest. I would have felt worse if he had kept us close last night against South Carolina and we wouldn’t have been able to use him today. We’re still alive for another game.

First Baseman Chip Cannon
We know we are going to get a quality start whenever Jonathan goes out there. Whenever he starts, our mentality of an offense is to just scratch and get him a couple of runs to work with. We were able to get him a good lead today, and he did a good job of getting us a big win again.

I’m not surprised by anything Jonathan does on the mound anymore. I’ve played with him for a couple of years now, and he’s just a guy that gets better as he goes. He had two complete games back-to-back for us last week, and he’s a great pitcher. I think he showed that to everyone today.

Pitcher Jonathan Ellis
I didn’t worry about which pitches were working for me all day. I just went out there and threw strikes. My coaches all my life have told me that the best pitch in basball is strike one. I definitely agree with them. Chip always comes through with a big hit at the beginning of the game, and he definitely came through again for us today.

Coastal Carolina Quotes

Coach Gary Gilmore
I felt that the first inning was really an omen for the rest of the game. They drop a ball and we bunt the runner over and can’t get it done. I thought that it would be a low scoring game and that we should try to get a run but it didn’t happen and they put runs on the board.

(on The Citadel pitcher Jonathan Ellis)
He was one of the best pitchers that we have faced this year. He had four pitches working today. The pitchers that we faced last year were nowhere close to that good. As good as Ellis was today The Citadel may have beat South Carolina last night. He was outstanding.

Pitcher Steven Carter

The humidity was getting to me . I was trying to calm myself down and be perfect but it backfired on me.

(on season)
I think it was successful. It took us 20 games or so to find our top guys. We had a chance to defend our conference title and that was one of our main goals.

Shortstop Brett Grandstrand

(on Ellis)
He threw everything for strikes today. He got ahead of us and it was tough to get something to handle.