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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 21, 2011

Brady Thomas

OMAHA, NEBRASKA

South Carolina Â– 7
Virginia - 1

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations. Give us an overview.
COACH TANNER: We played probably one of our better games of the year tonight, and we certainly needed it playing a team the quality of Virginia. We pitched extremely well. We played really tough defense, had some timely hitting. Really probably can't play any better than that.
Colby gave us a quality start. I really felt bad getting him out of there when I did, but we lost the pop-up in the sky there, and just felt like we needed to try to put a ball on the ground. It was 6-1 at that point, and they were getting ready to get back in the game. Fortunately, J.T. rode a comebacker, and we got out of that. As I said, that is a huge inning. We played extremely well on all fronts and won one of the biggest games of the year for us.

Q. Ray, how relieved are you to be in this situation where you can rest your pitching and you don't have to worry about making an emergency move from the pen and you can set it up the rest of the series however you want it?
COACH TANNER: I don't know that that's really the case. We'll work out tomorrow and the next day and try to figure it out. J.T. threw a few tonight, but he'll be ready to go in a couple of days. We wanted to get Matt back on the mound. He only threw ten pitches in the A&M game. So we wanted to get him back out there. Didn't throw very many tonight either.
But we'll do the best we can. We wanted Webb to get his feet wet. We didn't do that. But we've just got to come out and play whoever we play. We've got to play as good as we can. As I said tonight, I don't know that we can play any better than we did.

Q. Coach, talk about the factors in putting Jackie in the clean-up tonight. It's not often you see a guy go from number 9 to number 4 in the order?
COACH TANNER: You know, I don't know. It's been a long year as far as putting lineups together. I've spent more time agonizing over orders, who is going to play than I ever have in my entire career. And I fought through this one the last day and a half. Right up until the minute I needed to turn it in, I asked Jackie where he felt comfortable. He told me fifth. I said if you feel comfortable in fifth, we'll just go up one more spot, and he said okay.
I was just trying to mix it up a little bit. Brady's been scuffling a little bit. I he might be putting too much pressure on himself, so we dropped him down a little bit. And he had a pretty good night. I make out the lineup, and those guys have to perform. We did a good job tonight on the offensive side for sure.

Q. Brady, Coach Tanner gave you the vote of confidence yesterday after you struggled on Sunday. You came out tonight with a big game. How good did it feel to do that for your team?
BRADY THOMAS: It felt good. I was able to get the double early and we were able to scratch some more runs across and just make a couple adjustments, quit swinging at balls out of the zone, try to hit my pitches and be patient.

Q. John, could you just talk about the luxury of having a defense like yours behind you when you're pitching and what that allows you to do, just maybe on some of the plays that your infield turned tonight?
JOHN TAYLOR: They've been doing that all year. I'm very thankful to have my older guys who have that experience. Our whole defense, our whole infield, Adrian has the short hop that he picked up tonight. There were a few balls that a thought should have gone up the middle or would have if Wingo wasn't there.
I know they turned the double-play and probably would have been the Top 10 play. I think you've got to call that guy out there first. But they've been great all year, and hope to continue to play solid defense.

Q. Jackie, can you just describe what it's like to be 2-0 in this tournament and feel like you're one win away from being back in that championship series and what that position is like?
JACKIE BRADLEY JR: It feels good. I mean, everybody's, of course, trying to be 2-0. It puts you in a good spot. But we know that we're a long way from where we need to be. It's still early. We're not taking anything for granted, but we're in a good situation right now and we're going to try to take advantage of it as much as possible.

Q. Colby, it seemed like the first inning you that little more giddy-up on your fastball. Were you just feeling a little bit extra hyped, especially after last year?
COLBY HOLMES: Absolutely. The fans were great tonight. I felt good coming out of the pen. My pitches were working, and just throwing a bunch of first-pitch strikes. I felt like I was down in the zone good, and did my off-speed for strikes.

Q. Colby, you were not with the team here in Omaha last year. What was your emotion when you took the mound and looked up and saw 22, 23,000 people in the stands watching you pitch?
COLBY HOLMES: It was really good. Last year I had some trouble back home. I felt like I worked harder this year to get where I'm at. I feel a whole lot better being here this year and doing what I did than last year.

Q. Ray, all season you've shied away from calling your team the best team in the country. But you've got now five wins over teams that were ranked number one. Just wondering your appraisal of your team tonight considering where you are in this series?
COACH TANNER: I like my team, but I don't like that talk. You've been around me for a while. I don't like that. I don't think our guys would say that either to be quite honest. We line up and we have some good athletes, but there are teams that have better athletes than we do and some better arms. But we've done a good job. I'm not taking anything away from my team, or trying to low-key it or sandbag any.
Truth of the matter is we have to do things really well to win. We can't throw our gloves out. We have to pitch and play defense and get timely hitting. We don't just show up and beat people. These guys play hard. They play with some maturity. They have a little fight in them, and I like that. I love my team. I'm not trying to down play them at all. I just think we have to be a team of perspective.

Q. Coach, at this time last year you were fighting for your life. How different does this position feel?
COACH TANNER: It feels better right now, but it will feel the same when we tee it up again on Friday. Tonight I was never comfortable. We had an opportunity to maybe score one, two, three more here or there and we didn't do it. Then they loaded them up in the fifth. They're a great club. They were getting ready to make it 6-4, 6-5 in a hurry. I don't relax too much. I'm ecstatic to be in the position that we're in right now, but as I told our players afterwards, we won our first two, but that's not the ultimate here. You've got to keep winning and ready to go tomorrow. We'll have a little workout and try to be a good team when we play again.

Q. Brady, how much did it ignite you guys to have Jackie back and deliver that RBI double in the first inning? Did you guys feed off of that?
BRADY THOMAS: Having a player like Jackie back in the lineup definitely helps you. He stepped back in there and it looked like he hadn't missed a beat. We're just glad to have him back, and he's producing.

Q. Jackie, any special satisfaction for you beating your home-state school and the fact that you got to make the last out in the game?
JACKIE BRADLEY JR: Not really. I don't care who it is. We're trying to beat everybody. That is the name of the game. You've got to win. We're not really worked up into the rankings or who is this or who is that. We're just a team who is out there having fun. The team who gets the beach ball, they have to win, right? I mean, come on.
We're just having fun out there. We're all pretty loose as a team. We're just going to keep going out there and battling, and that's the way we play.

Q. Coach, any thoughts on the prowess of the SEC today and so far in this tournament winning every game the conference has had a chance to win?
COACH TANNER: Well, certainly proud of our conference for carrying the flag, but there are a lot of good teams around the country. SEC baseball is really special. It's well-documented. The Big 12 is good, and ACC, Pac-10, it goes on and on. The emphasis on baseball across the country is really special.
I think a lot of conferences look to the SEC for a blueprint. We have commitments from presidents, athletic directors, facilities. A lot of players like to play in our league. The exposure is great, and we battle. We battle each other for ten weeks in the regular season. Normally there are a couple of teams that can survive and play well at crunch time.

Q. Coach, one more question along those lines. Just the fact that there are three teams from the SEC east division here doing this, how bizarre is that?
COACH TANNER: You know, it's really been the entire year we've been there which is the amazing part. We've kind of started this season and we're all a game apart going into the next weekend. Then the sixth weekend, we're a game apart. Then Vandy takes over. We were up there, and Florida takes over. It was that way throughout the entire year. Then they ended up playing each other in the SEC Championship game of the tournament.
All three of us were tied for the overall regular season, and just consistent club is what it's been about. Pitching, defense, we've all seemed to be able to win our share. It's remarkable, but it does speak volumes about the quality of baseball week-in and week-out in the Southeastern Conference.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 21, 2011

Jackie Bradley, Jr.

Colby Holmes

Ray Tanner

John Taylor

Brady Thomas