Luis Pollerena pitched his *** off. There's nothing more to it than that- Caleb Reed did a great job as well- he had a big strikeout of B A Vollmuth with a runner on first. That's the type of performance we were missing last year- it was gutsy and I enjoyed watching both of them pitch. Kudos to both.
We outplayed them in the field- they had four errors, and then Shepherd's double was a ball that was misplayed by their outfielder. We had a couple of baserunning mistakes- where Freeman got doubled off at first and then Bradford didn't advance to third on a bunt. But we also did a good job of manufacturing runs and we kept them on their toes all night- we had double steal that was big and it created a run for us, and did a good job of putting pressure on them. On the flipside, Freeman threw out one of their baserunners late in the game, and that was a huge play- great job by Ogden to get the tag down on the runner's shoulder.
We also outhit them as well. USM is very lucky that Parks hit a double play ball where he did in the second inning because otherwise, we would have had another big inning. Bad luck for us. We had way too many strikeouts tonight. Seemed to me, the problem was we chased way too many sliders out of the zone. That's a pitch that we have to lay off of. We've got to work on that. We didn't have a lot of fly ball outs tonight- that's a good sign to me. CT Bradford had a great night, and I thought Adam Frazier did a good job of getting a key fly ball to drive in a run late in the game. Parks seemed to be our only senior that stepped up tonight. Ogden, Collins (yeah right), Freeman, Shepherd, and Vickerson HAVE to step it up.
Now, I must say this- I keep hearing all about how awesome USM is and all of this, and I see comments from one of their players about how they would "beat us 9 out of 10" times and all of this, but the fact of the matter is other than Vollmuth and some of their weekend starters like McInnis, I can't think of one player that I would clearly take over someone on our team. And I'm being dead serious about that. Also, as crappy as we have been the past few years, I believe we have split the series with them, and now after we won tonight, we should have a 3-2 lead the past three years. USM is a good team, but they're not much better than us. We would probably beat them 5 out of 10 times. And we're not exactly hitting on all cylinders ourselves right now either like we were against Auburn. I hate to send them this memo, but we're only going to get better in the coming years, and we're not letting them have the run of South Mississippi anymore. Sure, they'll still get guys like Mason Robbins from time to time, and they will still be a good quality program, but they aren't going to get guys like Todd McInnis and people like that. But all in all- they were what I thought they were- a good team, but overrated. They're much closer to MSU than they or their fans would like to admit.
But this is good win for our team- I would hate to play Florida going in with four losses in a row. It's good for our RPI, and it's good for team and fan morale. Before the season, I had this as a swing game that could go either way- fortunately it went our way tonight. If we go to a regional, we're going to look back at this as a key win for sure.
We outplayed them in the field- they had four errors, and then Shepherd's double was a ball that was misplayed by their outfielder. We had a couple of baserunning mistakes- where Freeman got doubled off at first and then Bradford didn't advance to third on a bunt. But we also did a good job of manufacturing runs and we kept them on their toes all night- we had double steal that was big and it created a run for us, and did a good job of putting pressure on them. On the flipside, Freeman threw out one of their baserunners late in the game, and that was a huge play- great job by Ogden to get the tag down on the runner's shoulder.
We also outhit them as well. USM is very lucky that Parks hit a double play ball where he did in the second inning because otherwise, we would have had another big inning. Bad luck for us. We had way too many strikeouts tonight. Seemed to me, the problem was we chased way too many sliders out of the zone. That's a pitch that we have to lay off of. We've got to work on that. We didn't have a lot of fly ball outs tonight- that's a good sign to me. CT Bradford had a great night, and I thought Adam Frazier did a good job of getting a key fly ball to drive in a run late in the game. Parks seemed to be our only senior that stepped up tonight. Ogden, Collins (yeah right), Freeman, Shepherd, and Vickerson HAVE to step it up.
Now, I must say this- I keep hearing all about how awesome USM is and all of this, and I see comments from one of their players about how they would "beat us 9 out of 10" times and all of this, but the fact of the matter is other than Vollmuth and some of their weekend starters like McInnis, I can't think of one player that I would clearly take over someone on our team. And I'm being dead serious about that. Also, as crappy as we have been the past few years, I believe we have split the series with them, and now after we won tonight, we should have a 3-2 lead the past three years. USM is a good team, but they're not much better than us. We would probably beat them 5 out of 10 times. And we're not exactly hitting on all cylinders ourselves right now either like we were against Auburn. I hate to send them this memo, but we're only going to get better in the coming years, and we're not letting them have the run of South Mississippi anymore. Sure, they'll still get guys like Mason Robbins from time to time, and they will still be a good quality program, but they aren't going to get guys like Todd McInnis and people like that. But all in all- they were what I thought they were- a good team, but overrated. They're much closer to MSU than they or their fans would like to admit.
But this is good win for our team- I would hate to play Florida going in with four losses in a row. It's good for our RPI, and it's good for team and fan morale. Before the season, I had this as a swing game that could go either way- fortunately it went our way tonight. If we go to a regional, we're going to look back at this as a key win for sure.
