Quotes Following Baseball's 2-0 Saturday Win Over Siena
Mar 17, 2007 | Baseball
March 17, 2007
TULANE HEAD COACH Rick Jones
Overall thoughts on the game
"We won today because we got great pitching and we played real well defensively. That's the good news. I don't think there is any question that offensively, we're struggling. At the end of the day, we've got to get better there. Our guys want to and they work hard at it. I know we can because we have a lot of guys who have had success in the past who just aren't doing as well right now. But you know they are capable because it has happened in the past. It's just one of those things. We just have to make sure that we stay committed to trying to be as good of an offensive club as we can. It isn't realistic to think that you can shutout every team you play, even though we have three (times) in a row."
On if it is comforting to know his team does not let down defensively in response to offensive struggles
"Today, we played well defensively. We have all year and our stats bear that out. I guess I'd like to see some of that positive defensive play to turn over into the offense. We just need to get some guys we know can hit on track. That takes some commitment and hard work, and right now, we need it to happen quickly."
On the performance of his pitchers in Saturday's win
Shooter didn't have as dominant of stuff as he had last week, but he had really good command all day. He got on a lot of guys early in the count. I just felt that he was in command from the outset. I thought Preston Claiborne gave us a dominant eighth - a real quick eighth - and then Daniel was not with his best stuff, but was typical Daniel to get the save."
TULANE STARTING PITCHER Shooter Hunt
On how he felt during his time on the mound Saturday
"I felt good. Coach Sutter called a good game. I didn't really pitch all that well early, but Billy (Mohl) and Coach Sutter saw a couple of things in my mechanics that I had to fix during the game. My fastball was the biggest thing for me today. I think I threw about 90 percent fastballs. When you have confidence in your fielders, it's great to pitch and just let (the opponent) put the ball in play."
On if he felt more pressure to pitch well in such a close game
"Any time a guy gets on or moves into scoring position, I don't want him to score so it's all the same for the most part. We've played in some close games and it's good for later on in the year. It's something you can get used to being in."
SIENA HEAD COACH TONY ROSSI
Overall thoughts on the game
"Hunt pitched a real good ballgame. The pitchers pretty much dominated us again, and offensively, they took advantage of our mistake. Their pitchers did a great job again and that's it in a nutshell. I think our kid did a great job. He kept them off balance and kept us in the ballgame, but like everything else, you've got to get base hits and you've got to get them in scoring position. We only had I think three opportunities and most of them came with two outs, which didn't help matters."
On having an improved approach at the plate with two strikes
"We talked about that before the game, about being more aggressive with a two-strike approach. Even today we struck out a little too much looking, I think four and yesterday we had eight. Still, four times is way too many, but we were able to cut the strikeouts down and our kids were more aggressive."
