March 20, 2010
Head Coach Ray Tanner Post Game Quotes vs. Tennessee Game 2
On Christian Walker’s triple
“It was nice to see, it was a two-strike pitch, Thurber made a nice effort and the way things were going for Christian, I was expecting to see him slide through the grass with a catch but thank goodness it slid by him and of course he got a hit his next time up. That’s the way things work sometimes and it was encouraging. We played a nice game, we let them right back in it and then we answered back. So it was good one for us, we didn’t swing the bats particularly well, in the early going, we had some run scoring opportunities but they came back to get us. We left guys out there, they pecked away when we made a mistake and they tied the thing up. (Sam) Dyson threw well and Parker (Bangs) came in and gave us a lift after we answered back.”
On clutch hits
“We’ve had some two-out hits. It’s nice to see that but we haven’t scored with less than two outs. We had some opportunities today and they got out of it with a double-play ball. It was anybody’s game after they battled back but we were able to score a few.”
On Tennessee’s comeback
“It was frustrating but for the most part they got hits. They hit balls where we weren’t. (Michael) Roth got a couple of good pitches for (Cody) Hawn and then he threw one two feet out of the zone but somehow Hawn got a bat on it and dumped it in left field. You have to give them credit. Other than (Evan) Marzilli making an ill-advised throw that gave them a couple of bases, they got their hits and got back in it that way.”
On the importance of winning game three in the series
“It’s great to be in this position. We’ve talked about how you play 30 games in the SEC. One thing for sure is that you better protect your home turf. We’ve won the series but would we like to have a great game tomorrow, absolutely. (Stephen) McCray on the mound for Tennessee has been lights out. It’s going to be a difficult task for us. But hopefully we’ll play well tomorrow and we’ll get in a position to win.”
