BASEBALL POSTGAME QUOTES | K-STATE K-State 10, South Dakota State 0 | March 10, 2021

PETE HUGHES, K-STATE HEAD COACH Opening Statement… “Clean baseball. That’s what I’ve been looking for the last seven days. That was a clean baseball game. It’s all predicated off of a good start, and we got a really good start from Caleb Littlejim. You go four innings and strike out eight with one hit. That’s as good as it gets with Caleb. His stuff has gotten better and better, and that was defnitely an indication of that. I love the fact that we hit and situationally hit. We played a little small ball to get the game going. Zero errors is something I love to see, and that’s the program we need to be is a team that plays clean baseball defensively and well-rounded baseball.

On the pitching the past two games... “We got a lot of guys involved, guys that are looking to expand their role in our bullpen and guys that already have roles in our bullpen. Those guys were sharp. Like you said, that’s a young lineup. That’s as young a lineup as you’ll see with the COVID rosters in college baseball this year. You still gotta execute pitches, and we did. Dylan Phillips, he was as sharp as I’ve seen him. He needs to factor into our late-inning plans when we get into weekends. It was good to see Andrew Stratman come in, a kid who has battled injuries and is being really productive. Griffn Hassall is a kid that’s had a lot of success with us the past couple of years and we need to get him rolling. I thought it was a productive night for those guys to come in and piggy back a real solid dominant start from Caleb.”

On the balanced offense… “Austin Garrett is an unselfsh team guy that’s been waiting for his opportunity. He just works and when his name got called, he was ready. Those unselfsh guys just get locked in with winning and being part of a team and the preparation. It didn’t surprise me. That’s why I put him up in the order in the 2-hole. I’m confdent in his abilities. He got us going, and I was happy for him. We’re always looking to make our lineup better and give kids opportunities to prove that. That’s what good and really deep programs are able to do. We’re trying to get at that level. It gives you more options and gives your program more depth. I thought Cam Uselton did a great job in there as a freshman. Got in a couple of pressure at bats with runners on base, and he did a great job with two strikes and it slowed the game down for him. He played a pretty good center feld, so a pretty good debut for the freshman. We have some more battle tested guys and more options to go to late in the game.”

On Phillips playing in the feld or pitching… “We protect his arm a ton with the drill work that he does with the outfelders and the infelders. That’s the key in maintaining that. He’s been around the program for three years now. He’s a mature enough baseball player that he knows how to limit his throwing. It gets tricky with the lineup. Once he enters the game, you’re playing with a nine man lineup without the DH. If you ever get in trouble and the game gets extended and you’ve gotta make a pitching change, that’s where you do all your double switch stuff and your pinch hitting. I think we have a deep enough bench to do that. I’m not afraid to use him on our Friday or Saturday or Sunday at any point in a game, usually from the sixth inning on. I think we have enough players to do the double switches and the pinch hitting. We have to use his arm, as you saw. He has really good stuff. That’s as good as I’ve seen him throw in a while as far as command and strikes with all three pitches.”

DYLAN PHILLIPS, SOPHOMORE OF/PITCHER On his second home run... “I was kind of fooled by it but it was a slider and I was able to stay back just enough and got the barrel to it and got a little help. I didn’t get quite all of it.”

On how he would grade his performance... “I defnitely feel really good at the plate. I feel more calm this week and don’t really know what it is but I was just seeing it a lot better this week than the last few.”

On the effects from the wind... “Sometimes it can kind of get in your head if it’s blowing to one side of the park you can force yourself to hit it that way. But if it’s blowing out you can just do whatever and hit it wherever and just let whatever happens happen.”

On the team's confdence offensively... “I think that it is defnitely big for our confdence. We kind of scuffed in a few games this past weekend but yeah these two games were good for us just seeing the ball fy, kind of relaxing us just knowing that we are capable of being a pretty good offense. Hopefully we can keep this one in our minds for if times are going tough and fall back on these two games.”