May 2, 2015
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 
Head Coach Chad Holbrook
Opening Statement
“Well, I thought we got off to a pretty dang good start. I couldn’t ask anything more out of Taylor Widener. He threw five innings, punched out seven and gave us a great chance to win. If someone had told me he was going to throw like that before the game I would’ve liked our chances. But, we had a couple of scoring opportunities there that could have added to our 2-0 lead. We had bases loaded with one out and [Alex] Destino up and we just couldn’t get a run across. Sometimes our scoring opportunities are few far and between and we have to maximize on them, and we didn’t today. Two runs is asking too much of our pitching staff to hold Auburn off, to win a game 2-0 or 2-1. Auburn’s just too solid of a team offensively. Our bullpen didn’t throw the ball particularly well, two runs in three consecutive innings, you’re not going to win a ball game that way. But Taylor [Widener] was the bright spot today obviously. The series is at stake tomorrow and a lot of things are at stake tomorrow from where were concerned. I hope we’ll come down here ready to play, ready to compete and ready to fight. Obviously it’s an important game.”
On the Offesnse
“I would like to get more hits. It’s not like we laid down and gave up. Just because they popped the ball up doesn’t mean they’re not trying, I was unhappy with the results but I wasn’t unhappy with their effort. Sometimes you have to give credit to the other teams’ pitcher. Our batters weren’t ahead in the count and had us on heels a little bit. I have no problem with our competitiveness, I have a problem with our results. Five hits over the course of nine innings, and we had a lot of guys pop the ball up. But, I’m more worried about the missed scoring opportunities earlier in the game than anything late in the game”
On Tomorrow’s Game
“It’s obviously a big game. I felt good coming into today’s game and that our kids would play extremely well. Which we did for six innings and then we just played okay. Again, we could have and should have been up more than one. So, an important game tomorrow for a lot of reasons and hopefully our guys come down here in the right frame of mind and compete their tails off.”
Junior Right-Hander Taylor Widener
On his career high seven strikeouts
“Well, after the second inning I found my tempo. We used my changeup a lot to get ahead and I just had two of my three offspeed pitches working for me today.”
On bouncing between starting and closing pitcher
“You can’t really look at it any different way, you’ve just got to get out there and throw. It’s one inning at a time either way.”
On going into tomorrow
“I think we just need to make some adjustments at the plate. Today they (Auburn) were throwing a lot of offspeed pitches to us and we didn’t make an adjustment the whole day. Tomorrow we need to come out, be a little more aggressive at the plate and make the adjustments we need to make to look for a curveball here and there, be aggressive with it and get it.”
On the lackluster offensive performance
“Like I said, the guy (Auburn’s pitcher) was throwing that cutter, slider kind of pitch in there pretty good and it was doing different things. It was backing up, it was cutting sharp, it was really multiple pitches in one pitch if that makes any sense. It was tough. We know how important the game is tomorrow. It’s the winning game of the series and hopefully we can come out being more aggressive and out compete them.”
