June 3, 2007
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina
South Carolina Head Coach Ray Tanner
Opening Comment…
“We’re very happy to win and advance to tomorrow night’s game. It was a hard fought win. I felt early on that both pitchers scuffled a little bit. We jumped out a little bit, but you don’t win 48 games if you aren’t a good club. I knew we were a long way from being over and they almost had enough runners on to come storming back at the end.”
On Charlotte…
“I’m very impressed with their club. They played hard. They get after it. Steedley wasn’t sharp, but they hung in there and they battled their way back. We had three or four defensive plays that could have saved some runs if we were just able to get the guy.”
On Travis Jones’ first inning play…
“I was shocked at that play. I’ve seen him play all year but you’re talking about a ball that was hit up the middle. It was a short hop that he had to dive for and then throw it against a guy that could run. Smoak made a good play on the other end of it.”
Trent Kline, Catcher
On capitalizing on errors…
“We do pride ourselves on capitalizing on errors, but it’s not just us, it’s every one of the schools playing right now. It’s 64 of the best teams in the country. Errors are going to kill you one way or the other, but we’re just happy it turned out the way it did.”
Justin Smoak, First Base
“Travis came out and hit a double off the wall and then they made a couple of errors that we capitalized on. It was a good win for us.”
Arik Hempy, Pitcher
On the game…
“I didn’t feel like I had a whole lot of control of my pitches. I made some pitches and got out of some jams. Charlotte is a good hitting team. They’re pretty scrappy, but I just had to go out there and keep us in the game and get them off the field.”
Charlotte
Charlotte Head Coach Loren Hibbs
Opening comment…
“I thought we were awful the first four innings, but I have to give South Carolina a lot of credit. They had a tremendous approach against [Spencer] Steedley. We usually catch better than we did. We made some plays that I haven’t seen1 made since fall practice. We competed, we’re going to keep hanging in there and keep playing. We just have to play better when you play against a team like South Carolina. The margin of error is reduced.”
On South Carolina’s approach…
“They’re aggressive and they can hit. They also make you do things that other teams don’t make you do. We’ve played some good teams but we haven’t played a team as physical as South Carolina. With the wind blowing out, we were a little out of our element in the beginning.”
