June 2, 2007
NCAA Nashville Regional
Post-Game Quotes
Vanderbilt 2 Austin Peay 1 (11)
Austin Peay Head Coach Gary McClure
Opening statement
“Obviously it was a great ballgame tonight. It was as well-pitched college baseball game as I’ve seen in a long time. You’ve got probably the best pitcher in the country out there from Vanderbilt and Shaun Kelley for us. Every time he pitches I tell him it’s the best game he’s thrown. He was in total command of the game and pitched with a ton of heart. He pitched well enough to beat anyone in the country tonight, without a doubt. All three pitches he threw well and he showed why he’s the pitcher of the year in our league.”
On the final play
“I told the guys after the game, that’s a situation where you might play 10 years and that never happens. He made a great pitch, jammed him, easy ground ball back to him and he just got his spike caught. When he came off balance to go get the ball he just got his spike caught and tripped up. J.B., the second baseman, had probably more time than he thought but he wanted to get the out and wasn’t able to come up with it. Wilshire came in and did job and Vanderbilt, they seem to have magic this year. When you open the door, they take advantage. That’s why they’re a great team.”
On the difference in the game
“De la Osa, he made the play of the game. That was the difference. He makes a diving catch in the right-center gap. He’s laid out, the glove’s on the grass. If that ball drops in, it’s a double and the run scores, and we probably win that game. Hey, that’s why they’re No. 1 right now.”
Shawn Kelley
“Those are always hard to lose. Both of us pitched well. He was on, no doubt about it. He did a good job of keeping our hitters off base and getting out of big innings and I just tried to do the same thing.”
Vanderbilt Head Coach Tim Corbin
Opening Statement
You had two pitchers that pitched as well as they possibly could. I thought David was tremendous in the fact that it was tight the whole and he had to pitch with guys in scoring position. I thought he was very, very good and Casey was too. You strike out 20 guys, you’re doing something special. Kelly pitched the way I anticipated he would pitch. Five-year guy, tough as nails, out there competing. It was like a heavyweight, to be honest with you, and it was going to come down to a play like that. It was just a weird play and we were fortunate to take advantage of it. You gotta take it.
On Price’s toughness in the bottom of the ninth
After he got Cross out, we were thinking of bringing in Casey to face Smith and he gave me the glove again, like `go back in your hole.’ He finished the inning. There’s a lot of toughness there. There’s just not many guys that can pull that off. He did a heck of a job.
On Austin Peay
They were very lose. They had nothing to lose. Kelley just went out there and pitched like he was (Curt) Schilling. He’s out there just dealing.
On keys to the game
It was pitching and defense tonight. Dominic’s play was huge because they (would have) scored on that play. We played defense and pitched well enough to win.
On what he told the team after the game
Don’t feel bad about this one. I’ve seen it too many times. You take `em however you can. We deserved to win that game because we pitched and played defense. Just because we scored on a passed ball or an error, we pitched well enough and played good enough defense.
You just have to tip your caps to Austin Peay. They came in here, a four seed, but they played like they were hosting a regional tonight.
On pitching in such a big-time game
You have to treat every game like that. You want to go out there and act like every game you pitch in, no matter what the score is, is 0-0. If you do that, in those games you are up 1-0 or tied 0-0, it doesn’t really faze you.
On his command
Pitching ahead in the count opens the door for so many more pitches than when you’re 1-0, 2-0, 3-1. Coach Corbin’s told us the average multiple times whenever people are 1-0, 2-0 compared to 0-2, 1-2. It’s like 150 to 200 points in the batting average. Whenever you’re ahead in the count it makes it a lot easier to pitch.
You have to tip your cap to Kelly. He pitched a great game. He came out and had a plan and stuck to it. We were fortunate enough to catch a break and a win’s a win. You’ll take them any way you can this time of year.
