Vance Arnold
Vance Arnold
ball continued hit strike
We continued to put the ball in play. We didn't strike out and we hit the ball hard, but they continued to make big plays.
balls game goal ground hitters instead pitches plate strike swing taking tempo
Our goal for him is not to strike everyone out but to be around the plate and get ground balls. We want him to make the hitters swing instead of taking pitches and keep the tempo of the game moving.
bottom cow fastball hitter holy lead outside pinch second seventh strikes
Just so many times before, we've had a lead in the bottom of the seventh and then not come away with the win. I mean, holy cow, their pinch hitter comes up with two outs and two strikes and slaps an outside fastball by the second baseman, and you go holy cow again. I mean, you think, what do we have to do to win?
errors kids stop worry
I worry about the kids getting down. We need to stop making errors and get off of our heels.
competing great hitting job tim
Tim did a great job of competing and hitting his spots. He's one of those kids, you tell him what you need him to do and he comes through.
ahead ball experience fall last outdoors warm worked
With the fall ball experience and the warm weather, we're ahead of where we were last year. We've been able to get outdoors and get a lot done. We've got all our defenses in and we've worked offensively.
convince experience innings kids trying
We still don't have a lot of experience on the mound. We're trying to get kids innings and try to convince them to go after them.
anybody bats carry conference everybody good guys healthy pitching shape state swinging
We've got everybody healthy and we used a lot of guys today. We've got 11 or 12 guys swinging the bats well right now but our pitching is going to have to carry us from here on out. But we feel like we're in good shape for conference and I feel like we're as good as anybody in the state right now.
bats boys couple easy game hit kids knock needed swinging unselfish walks
We accomplished what we needed to. We're really swinging the bats right now and a lot of kids had unselfish at-bats when the game was still tight. We had some walks and a couple of kids got hit and then the big boys knock them in. We just don't have an easy out in the lineup.
anyone ball balls coming defense double earned gets good ground high loves million opportunity season strikes throws turned
If anyone has earned this opportunity it's Grant. Because he was real good when he was young and then kind of disappeared and he's battled back and he's come a million miles. Our expectations weren't real high coming into the season but he's never turned the ball down and the defense loves him because he throws strikes and gets ground balls and double plays.
anywhere ball defense good outfield surprised throw turned
From the outfield to the infield, we can pretty much throw a ball and get it anywhere pretty quickly. And frankly, we were a little surprised that our defense has turned out to be so strong, but we feel really good about it right now.
experience five guys happen knew learned mistakes night several
We made some mistakes that we had not made in the first five games. That contributed to the situation. We knew anything could happen the other night at Springdale because we've got several guys without much varsity experience on the AAAAA level. But I think we learned from it and we'll be fine.
aggressive bats came forgot game guys happened kids losing people positive second swing talked
We talked after losing the first game that positive people make positive things happen. We forgot about what happened in that first game and the kids battled in the second game. We told the guys to just swing the bats and be aggressive and they came through.
baker early kept kids knew pitch plan rolling tried
We knew going in that we were going to pitch by the innings. (Drew) Baker pitched really well for us early on, but he got tired, so we said, 'Oh well, we'll use Plan B, then Plan C, then Plan D.' So we just kept rolling and tried to let the kids get outs.