Eight-seed Tennessee baseball knocked off one-seed Texas 7-5 in 12 innings Thursday night in Hoover to advance in the SEC Tournament.
The Vols used a phenomenal relief outing from Brandon Arvidson and extra-inning heroics from Gavin Kilen at the plate to achieve the win. Tennessee advances to the semifinals of the tournament on Saturday.
After the game, Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle met with the media to share his thoughts on the loss, the performance from his former pitcher at Texas A&M (Arvidson) and more.
See everything Schlossnagle said below.
Opening Statement:
“Congratulations to Tennessee. Good ballgame. I thought that Ethan was just outstanding today. That’s a good sign for us moving forward.
Offensively we did a great job against Doyle. He’s such a good pitcher. I thought we battled him. Ethan got a big hit, and then Arvidson was outstanding. He was really the difference in the game. Stretched through 85 pitches, punched out nine, walked one. Brandon was on our team at A&M a couple years ago, so I know he’s a good pitcher. But I’m proud of our team. Stinks to lose, stinks to go home. This is a fun place to be this time of year.
But we’ve got to go home and get ready for next weekend.”
On what went into the process of going with Ethan Walker as the starting pitcher and how the performance sets them up for next week:
“Well, it certainly gives us somebody, depending on matchup and how deep we play into the regionals, he’s got experience starting a game. So since Spencer is down, we really don’t have a defined third starter, so we’ve had a lot of guys who have started games throughout the course of the season, which we have done that by design.
But Ethan is a strike thrower and keeps the ball on the ground most of the time, and now he’s got experience of not just starting a game, but getting up and down and throwing four plus innings, so that’s good for us for next weekend.”
On how different Brandon Arvidson is now than the player he coached back in 2023 and what impressed him about Arvidson’s performance:
“Well, he was pretty banged up. If I remember right, he had a bad back. He had a lot of health issues and could never really get going. He always could really spin the ball, and loose arm. So you could see it coming. He went to San Jac and got some good innings in and over there with Coach (Frank) Anderson, obviously with a great pitching coach.
“He was just throwing the two breaking balls and running his fastball up to 95, 96, and then he had the two different breaking balls that we just didn’t see — we were swinging at them, and they’re not even in the strike zone, so that tells you how good he was.”
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On the value of momentum this time of year and if this loss thwarts their momentum:
“No, I don’t think so. It’ll be whatever we make it. 2015 [I] was at TCU and we went two and out in the conference tournament, and Coach Garrido, first text message I had, was this is the best thing to ever happen to your team, and that team was the second of four straight College World Series teams. It’ll be whatever we make it. We’ve got to get home. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got to make sure we’re prepared for next weekend.”
On Ethan Walker’s journey:
“Yeah, pretty awesome. For the University of Texas, first ever SEC game, we have a somewhat recruited — not really a walk-on. We recruited him, but in the summer, we were just looking for bodies. We needed lefties and we needed strike throwers, and Coach Wiener had had his eye on Ethan just as a strike thrower, and a guy that could be deceptive, and here he is starting University of Texas’s first ever SEC game against his home state school. That’s crazy. But credit to — Ethan did an awesome job, and we’re super fired up he’s on the team.
“I don’t even know if he made the first seven or eight road trips in the SEC. It’s just been the last three weeks that he’s really kind of come on for us.”
On how playing close games builds character:
“Well, certainly, like all the coaches I’m sure have said, when you get through this league and you play through this league, there’s nothing that’s going to surprise you. We’re going to play good teams next week and moving forward if we earn the right to play after next weekend. But there’s not going to be any teams that are going to be better. There’s not going to be better pitchers. There’s no other lefty that I know of that’s better than Liam Doyle. So you can work off that. We’ve played a lot of close games because we do pitch well. We do play solid. Not the most offensive team, but kind of an opportunistic offensive team.
We have to play clean baseball to win because we’re not super explosive. We can be with the right guys healthy, if we get Jonah back. Belyeu obviously changes the makeup of our team. But this is a tough team. They win anyway. In Austin, they call it Texas fight and this bunch has that. We’ve still got to go earn the wins, but it’s an honor to be in the dugout with our team.”
On if there was any thought of walking Gavin Kilen to load the bases in extra innings:
“Yeah, thought of it, thought about it. Got a lot of respect for (Andrew) Fischer. Hindsight, Kilen, great bat-to-ball skills, and of course Fischer strikes out, so made me look worse. No, just take our shot there, but Volantis is our guy, and we’ve seen him get out the really good lefties before. But give it to Gavin; he had the two big swings of the day for sure.”
