May 2, 2013
Head Coach Chad Holbrook
Opening Statement…
We definitely have our work cut out for us. We are facing a very elite Vanderbilt team. They are probably one of the better teams in the country, if not the best. Luckily we get to play them at home and in front of our fans. It should be a great atmosphere. I understand that the ticket sales have been great and that some of the games may be sold out, on national tv against a great opponent. That is why kids come to South Carolina and why kids go to Vanderbilt is a series like this. We are looking forward to the weekend and it is a great challenge and a great opportunity. We will need to play well at all facets of the game to win this series. We will need to pitch well, we will need to get some timely hits, compete at the plate and play great defense. Hopefully we can put all three of those together this weekend because we are going to need to.
On Max Schrock…
He has had a great second half of the year. I guess it was about a month ago he was hitting about .217 and I was thinking about dropping him into the eight hole. He put too much pressure on himself to start the year, and he got off to a rough start. Since that point, before we went to Tennessee or so, he was been terrific. He has been the player we thought Schrock was going to be. He has provided us some stability in the middle of our lineup, gave LB (Dantzler) some protection there. I still like the fact that he has walked 28 times and only struck out 17, that is pretty rare for a freshman. He has got a great plate approach. I still have hope he will get up around .300 before the year is out. He would have to go on a tear to do it, but he is a .300 hitter. He will hit .300 for his career at South Carolina, I don’t have any doubt about it.
On having power pitching…
Well we have got some power guys they just struggle throwing strikes. Evan Beal has a great arm, he throws 93-94 mph. Koumas can run it up there pretty good too. They just haven’t pitched as well as they would like. The guys who have pitched will just happen to be the strike throwers, the pitchability guys, the guys that wont give the opposition free passes. Those are the guys that Coach Meyers wants to throw and that I want to throw. You throw strikes, change speeds, keep hitters off balance we have made a living around here with those type of guys. I guess the last power arm that we had that started for us was probably Dyson. Blake Cooper was a pitchability guy, he didn’t have a blazing fastball but he was as good as anybody on Friday night. Nolan has been terrific for us. Jack has had two great starts in a row. It is not how hard you throw, that is not what it is about. There are guys in the hall of fame that haven’t thrown 90 miles an hour. The object of the game is to get people out and those are the kinds of guys we try to recruit as best we can. I would love to have a power arm or two. If you can pitch you can beat people. I think Roth had a pretty good record against first round draft picks and he was throwing it 84 mph. There is more than one-way to skin a cat and luckily we have got some guys that are left handed, can change speeds, and can throw any pitch in any count. That is a good formula to have in college baseball.
On the team’s confindence…
We are certainly more confident today then when we were getting on a plane to go to Baton Rouge after losing to Gardner-Webb. What a difference a week makes in regards to that. We could be a much more confident team and it not show up on the win-loss column this weekend. We can play great baseball. The realistic thing about this weekend that scares me to death is that we can play great and lose. That is how good Vandy is. That is not a knock on my team, that is just how good I think Vandy is. It is a great, great challenge for our team and hopefully our fans can help us. There have been many games here where the atmosphere has helped us win games and we are going to need them to help us this weekend.
