SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

May 27, 2021

Tim Corbin

Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

Vanderbilt Commodores

Postgame Press Conference

Vanderbilt 5, Mississippi 4

TIM CORBIN: It was just a good ball game for us in terms of coming back and being able to withstand their big hits. I thought we pitched very well, Christian in particular. He gave us strong innings into the sixth, which was a great thing. That was probably his personal best so far.

Then I thought Luke Murphy pitched very well also. You got to give Elko credit. He had two big swings. He's a kid that plays with a lot of heart and picks up his team, and he certainly did that. But I thought we defended well, and I thought we were responsive to their charge, particularly at the end.

Q. What do you think was maybe better for Christian tonight compared to his previous starts? What do you think he improved on? Do you know what the issue was with him when he left the game?

TIM CORBIN: I think the first thing is he was throwing a lot of strikes. He was up in the count, and he responded, when he wasn't in the count, with off-speed pitches. I thought his change-up was excellent. I thought his breaking ball was good. I think he had trouble at the beginning of the game holding on the ball, holding the ball, getting a grip of the ball, but he talked to Hugh Fisher midway through the game. I think Hugh helped him out a little bit.

No, I thought he pitched extremely well and was able to land the secondary pitches. He just had a spasm, cramp in his arm. We didn't want to take any chances.

Q. What does it say about Christian's stress management that he pitched his best game on this sort of stage?

TIM CORBIN: Well, I think it's controlling your emotions and controlling your adrenaline on that stage. We've talked about him a lot in terms of his youth, his inexperience, but I felt like, once he got by the first inning, I felt like he settled in. I thought he was calm coming off the field in between each innings. I thought he did a good job of getting to the bench and really settling down.

He's not a highly emotional kid. I mean, he's a good competitor, but you basically know what you're getting from him in terms of his emotions. There's not a lot of highs and lows with him, but yet he is a good competitor for a young man.

We're very proud of him. He picked up our team in a big way. I'm happy that he could have that outing for the first time on our field. We have a lot of guys in that dugout that this is their first trip to Birmingham and really the first time on this field. We didn't get an opportunity to work out here. So everything was a little bit new, and I thought the kids responded pretty well.

Q. You subbed a lot there in the ninth. You pitch ran Vaz, you took Bulger in for Jason. I know you were really thin in the field and you've been through two catchers. Are you thinking at that point, we really need to play more for the win than the tie?

TIM CORBIN: Yes, but you can't win it unless you tie it. I think that was we just needed to tie the game and thought Javy was the type of kid that could get to second base. We had him running on 3-1. He is the type of kid that, if there is a ball in the dirt, he could get to second base. I thought he did a good job getting to the plate.

Then after that, yeah, we hit for Gonzo with Bulger, who's been a good fastball hitter. You know, we had some kids -- you get into this situation right here, if you're going to win tournament games, then we talked about the fact that there's going to be guys that haven't engaged themselves yet. They're going to have to, and that was one of these moments. It could have been Jack O'Dowd, could have been Alan Espinal. They're here at Vanderbilt for a reason. They're here to play. They likely would have hit the field had we not gone ahead.

Q. For such a young team that doesn't have a lot of SEC tournament or postseason experience, what was the significance of being able to win a game like this with so many lead changes, particularly in the ninth inning coming back to walk it off?

TIM CORBIN: I think any time you do something like that, you absorb the opponents' rushes or offensive moments or punches, and then, you know, as a team, you've got to counter-punch. You've got to do something in response to them. That all boils down to competition and competing. If you can't compete within this league, you're probably not going to last very long. That is a big piece of being a successful team.

We've had a lot of good battles with a lot of SEC teams throughout the season, and the ones you remember are the ones like tonight where you just play a very tenacious team, but we responded in a nice way, and the kids, Dominic said it, they're a very competitive group for the most part.