Texas Tech baseball opened up its series against Kansas with a, 5-4, win at Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park on Friday. Head coach Tim Tadlock, Brian Klein and Micah Dallas talked to the media about the close game that was decided by a clutch hit from Klein in the bottom of the ninth.

Tim Tadlock

- On Dallas’ performance, “I thought it was beautiful. I thought for a guy to go out there and throw seven innings, in game one, and really have some stuff go wrong in the one inning with the bunt, throwing it away and I thought he really kept his composure and presence, and I was really proud of him.”

- Tadlock said he thought both Taylor Floyd and Dane Haveman threw the ball well and thought Floyd did a good job of getting the team through the right-handers of Kansas’ batting order. “Once we saw they weren’t bunting there, we put in Dane. Those are good matchups for Dane.”

- Tadlock gave a lot of credit to Kansas’ starting pitcher Ryan Cyr.

- Tadlock said he is not making any predictions for the Final Four and said the basketball team is doing just fine. “Really proud of those guys. Looking forward to watching it.”

Brian Klein

- On his clutch hit that won Tech the game, “It all started with Gabe getting on. We knew we had to get him on so it was great for him to get a nice hit and then, of course, Cole moving up with the bunt and then Dylan had a really good at-bat before me, so those guys just set it up and then it just happened to be me in the right spot.”

- On the lack of hitting in the first few innings, “I just don’t think we had balls falling in the beginning. I think we had good at-bats all the way through for a while and then we just couldn’t piece them together.”

- Klein said he was just praying the whole time at the plate to just have a good at-bat. “Like Tadlock talks about, just get your pitch and then just did my best at that at-bat.”

- Klein then talked about the team being down 4-0 but coming back and scoring three to make it 4-3 at the end of the sixth, “One of the things Tadlock tells us and, as a team we’ve taken it, is we’ve got to play all nine innings, so we were down four but we knew we had three or four innings to play, so it was just getting ready to hit and taking it each pitch at a time.”

- Klein said he is confident with runners in scoring position. He credited Tadlock because he puts him in the middle of the batting lineup.

Micah Dallas

- With starting three games on the season, Dallas said being a starter is special. “I love doing whatever job they put me out there to do but starting, there is a different feel to it.”

- Dallas said his mentality going into the game was to just pound the zone and trusting his defense to make plays.

- On Floyd and Haveman, “They’re remarkable. Both of those guys you can put in the toughest situations and with full confidence they’ll work their way out.”

- From his perspective, as a pitcher, Dallas gave his thoughts on what Cyr did to keep the Red Raiders from hitting in the first five innings. “He wasn’t throwing that hard but I think his main focus was working off his fastball and he was locating it exactly where he needed it to most of the time and that’s how we got to go so late in the game.”