Trey Pooser Didn’t Dabble Around Against Oregon State

Kentucky opened NCAA Tournament super regional play with a 10-0 rout of Oregon State that sets up a chance tonight for Kentucky to win again and earn its first trip to the College World Series.

Pitcher Trey Pooser gave Kentucky seven brilliant innings. He gave up just one hit, walked four and struck out eight. He was in trouble only once in the game and got two strikeouts in the fifth inning to end Oregon State’s only real threat. He has allowed only one earned run in 19 postseason innings. In two NCAA tournament games this season he allowed one run on six hits in 14.0 innings with six walks and 15 strikeouts.

Here is what Oregon State had to say about Pooser after the game.

Q. Elijah, what was Pooser doing so well tonight?

ELIJAH HAINLINE: He was throwing three pitches. He threw them pretty well and he pitched himself a good game. Got a lot of weak contact. I think that was the biggest thing.

But we have a really good offense that I think can respond to that, and I think we have the ability to go out there and hit guys like that. I think the next couple days the big focus is just do what we have the whole year.

Q. What do you think Pooser did so well tonight against your hitters that made them unable to get that big swing in this one?

COACH MITCH CANHAM: He throws quality strikes. He doesn’t really dabble around. He still walked a handful of guys, which allowed us to get in those situations. But when runners are in scoring position or we had guys on base, they were able to minimize. We didn’t get a bunt down at one point, then we end up walking the bases loaded with one out, unable to draw any across.

But we got under some balls, we clipped some, we struck out 11 times, 12 times, and that’s just too easy of a way back to the dugout is striking out. Being a little more competitive. I don’t think it was necessarily strike-out stuff that we were facing tonight. We should have put a lot more balls in play. A handful of them were hit hard. Shoot, McDowell almost makes the catch on the top of the wall; Macias had one down the line; gets one more step on it and then there’s a handful of different runs right there.

But really it’s a tight ballgame. We were talking do we play infield in right now, do we leave the guys back. I don’t mind being down four right now if that’s what it comes to, give up one not two because of what we know our offense is capable of doing. And those guys on the back end of our bullpen that come in in those tight games, we know what they can give us, as well.

So until it was a 10-0 ballgame I thought we were still in it. We always feel that way. It’s a habit. You look at the lineup, the lineup card posted in the dugout, and you just visualize success from each of those guys and how they’re going to get on and do it.

It makes it easy. When you see their name and you know how hard these kids work, when you look at that lineup, you’re like, man, we got this. You look at the guys down the bullpen, you’re always filled with confidence.

That’s just a choice that I personally make, to see the best in those guys, because they work their butts off.