No. 20 Ole Miss had a good night on Friday.
The Rebels defeated No. 9 Texas A&M 5-3, Hunter Elliott reached 300 career strikeouts and the Rebels are now one game closer to securing their spot as a NCAA Regional host. Afterwards, Elliott and first baseman Will Furniss talked about the two-run victory plus Elliott’s milestone achievement.
Here’s everything they said:
Hunter Elliott
On performance Friday night…
Yeah, it was good. I felt like I got it going early. I felt like I kind of got control and command of things early in the game. It was a good night. Going into it, I knew there was a possibility that this might be my last one here, so I feel like I maybe soaked it in a little more. I enjoyed myself out there a little more, and maybe that’s what helped me kind of settle in.
On nail-biting…
I feel like I try to do a really good job with my nails throughout the week. I pitch, and then it just goes to crap. I bite the crap out of them.
On 300 strikeout milestone…
Yeah, it’s really cool. I grew up coming to games. I grew up being a super big Ole Miss fan. It’s something you, I don’t even know that you necessarily dream of when you get to campus, but it’s really cool now that I’m there to be in the likes of those names. It’s special.
On pitching at Swayze Field…
Yeah, I don’t think it’s really going to all hit for me because we’re in the midst of it right now, wanting to host regionals and host super regionals. So it’s not really going to hit until maybe after we don’t get to host or something like that. I just kind of went into it knowing that it was a possibility that today was the last. I think this team’s going to go on a really good run here at the end, so I’m not planning on it being the last. But we’ll see.
On lessons learned from Friday night…
Yeah, I think it all goes back to the brain, man. You’ve got to go into things with confidence and believing in yourself, and I think I did a really good job of that today. I felt like I got really good work in during the week this week and felt comfortable going into it. Joel (Mangrum) does a great job having us prepared.
On extra year of eligibility…
No, no, not saying that at all. But we’ll see. I mean, that’s definitely an option, and a really good option.
On knowing if he was close to 300 strikeouts…
No, absolutely not. I had no idea. I knew that I had a couple of struggling starts coming into this, and that I needed to get my team some length. That’s pretty much all I knew.
Will Furniss
On Hunter Elliott…
It doesn’t surprise me at all. It seems like it’s all the time for him. I think everybody wants to talk about his slip-ups the last two weeks, but two weeks ago was honestly just kind of bad luck. He just got some dinker base hits that dropped down. Then last week, they were just swinging it great that day. I’m never nervous whenever Hunter’s on the mound. I’m not nervous for pretty much anybody this year with our staff. They’ve picked us up countless amounts of times, especially tonight.
I had not a great attempt at that fly ball, and Hooks picked me up with the bases loaded, which was really awesome. That’s what they’ve done all year. They’ve been dominant. Especially Hunter, man. It doesn’t matter what game they’re in. If he’s on the mound, I have a really good feeling we’re going to win.
On his 7th inning RBI double…
Yeah, they took out Sdao and brought in the guy trying to get Judd out. He rolled into a fielder’s choice, I believe, which honestly, he was swinging it great tonight. I expected him to hit a home run. I think everybody did. But I was just trying to stay on it, hit the ball hard and give Judd a chance to score because he can fly. He’s a freak athlete. But yeah, just getting the plan that Clem made for us and sticking with it. Props to Coach Clem for helping me with that at-bat. I probably wouldn’t have gotten that double without him.
On game-ending, line drive catch…
I knew I had to make up for whatever the hell that was. That was the main reason. I was like, I better make this play. If I can’t catch a routine fly ball, I might as well make the hard ones. So yeah, that’s just reaction. He hit it hard, and I just kind of laid out and put my glove where I thought the ball was going to be. It just so happened to go in my glove.
