June 1, 2002

TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO!

We came here hoping to win three straight games. Today we beat Southeast Missouri State 12-6 thanks to some clutch hitting off the bench by Shaen O'Connor. After we fell behind 5-2 in the fourth, Shaen pinch hit for an injured Robbie Orton with men on and delivered a clutch double to tie the game at five. After a Derek Hutton sac fly, we were up by one in the fifth. Matt Pali got a big hit to drive in Mike Cox.

The next inning SEMO scored one to close the gap to one run. In the seventh, Jim Cooney was brought in with one out and the tying run on second and got a ground out to second and then struck out the last hitter and hold our one run lead.

In the seventh, Pali drove in Cox who led off with a double and the lead was back to two. Then Shaen ran the count to 3-0 looked at me and got the hit sign. A lot of guys are afraid to swing 3-0, but Shaen jumped on a fastball and drove it deep over the fence in left. The lead was now four. Jim went back out and struck out two hitters but walked two in between. That brought up a righty whose batting average is about 175 pts higher against left handed pitchers. In came McNab. An infield hit loaded the bases to bring up the tying run. Tim struck him out and we got ready to score again. SEMO helped us out with a couple of errors and we scored two runs. Three groundballs to Cox and we moved into the championship game.

In the night game, Alabama beat SEMO 7-4. We face the Tide tomorrow at 3:00 EDT. Danny Core on the mound. Everything has worked as we hoped. The rest is up to us. They have to beat us twice, but we want it to end in one. Here we go. KC

PS - LJ and Brown had back to back home runs again today!