April 5, 2008

Recap |  Final Stats

TULANE HEAD COACH Rick Jones

Overall thoughts on the game
"Marshall out-played us in every phase. They out-hit us 14-6, threw a complete game and really out-pitched us. We didn't play well fundamentally. We missed some cut-off men, weren't where we were supposed to be on defense in a couple of different situations, and that's not something you can afford to do in this league and expect to be successful. We just got out-played in every phase, and you have to give them credit."

On what Tulane will try to do on Sunday
"We're going to try and win the ballgame. We just have to play better. It's as simple as that. We have to play better in all three phases."

On what concerns him about tonight's loss
"We had two errors tonight and just had some breakdowns that we can't have and haven't had very often. I'm concerned about our pitching. We have not thrown very well out of the bullpen. We've only had a couple of guys in the starting role really giving us the kind of innings we have to have. We're taxing our bullpen. I'm concerned about the fact that we didn't put much pressure on them at all tonight from an offensive standpoint with only six hits and not enough strung together."

On Marshall scoring runs from third with two outs and Tulane leaving a runner at third with no outs in the fifth
"When you leave a runner at third base with nobody out, that certainly takes some of the wind out of you. You have to give their guy credit. He made some good pitches, but at the same time, that's something we really work on. We have runner at third base and less than two drills all the time and everybody knows the importance of putting the ball in play. We didn't put the ball in play and you have to give credit to their pitcher."

On scoring just one run after Marshall committed a pair of errors in the fourth
"They threw a couple of balls away, but they played really well other than that. That gave us a little bit of an in there and we tightened the score up. But we didn't do enough to sustain. We did not play nearly as well as Marshall."

MARSHALL HEAD COACH JEFF WAGGONER

On the performance of Marshall starting pitcher Steve Blevins
"He's a guy who after a loss you want to have on the mound because he's a bulldog. He pitched like that tonight. His pitch count was up, but he felt good and still had the velocity. That was the thing we were checking. He didn't want out of the game, and you could see that. Even to the last batter, he was really coming at them."

On being able to score a runner from third with two outs twice late in the game
"That situation happened a couple of times in this game, and it happened to them where they had a runner at third with no outs, it's just one of those games where a couple of big hits happen with two outs."

On if it was big to get a win after last night's loss
"It was. Our guys stayed positive. We have some good leaders on this team that bounced back on that. And when you put a guy like that on the mound, you get that confidence to fight back."