Back against the wall, Kentucky Baseball came into Thursday facing elimination as they would draw the Arkansas Razorbacks in the early game. An Arkansas team that Kentucky took two out of three just two weeks ago in Lexington at Kentucky Proud Park. Coming into the elimination Thursday morning session, many expected Arkansas to push over the Wildcats, but Kentucky did the pushing. Kentucky came into the game with Arkansas with something to prove, as they wanted to show the Wildcats were up for the fight as they carry momentum to the NCAA Tournament next week.

For Kentucky, the SEC Tournament is more than just a series of games. It’s a platform to build confidence, to feel good about the team’s potential as they gear up for the NCAA Tournament. At this crucial point in the season, winning is the only way to fuel that optimism, to keep the hope alive.

In the press conference following the win over Arkansas, Coach Mingione talked about how he challenged his guys not to let Arkansas beat them the way they beat them in the first game. He challenged each guy to use his grown-man voice to his teammates to hold each other accountable on Thursday morning. Ryan Waldschmidt talked about how the coaching staff brought Buster Douglas and Mike Tyson up.

” Yeah, so this morning we were in our team meeting, and Coach Ming brought up Buster Douglas and how he fought Mike Tyson and won.
Today, we go out there against a really good team, and you’re facing a really good starting pitcher, and you just have to do what it takes to win. You have to find a way.

Especially when your backs are on the wall, you’re either going home or moving on. We did an excellent job of being relentless, staying on the attack all night, and trying to find a way to win.

When you do that, when you give yourself up for the team and try to do everything you can to win a game, you have a lot of success. “

When asked about trusting his guys, Coach Mingione responded.

” Yeah, there are six components to offense, and when we’re at our best, we’re doing what we did today. We bunted, we hit bombs, we ran the bases well, we stole bases, we displayed our strike zone discipline, and we situationally hit really well.

I thought Lopez was crucial; they had runners at second and third; we had runners second and third, and he pulled the ball foul, next pitch, a couple of pitches later, he rams the ball in the right-center field gap to get us two RBIs. We situationally hit.

We clicked on a lot of things. The guys are just great. I had Grant Smith in my room last night because we just felt like, hey, we could try to get him to a little better place, mentally, physically, you know, all those things, just to check on him. We had a great meeting with him, and again he responded. I thought his leadership today was outstanding. He was — man, his desire to win today showed, and I thought our team fed off of him.

So you’re right, and that is our nine-hole guy, but he had great competitive at-bats, flew out to the track, and got the two-strike base hit there late. But when we’re at our best, it is 1-9, and it’s a lineup where other teams and coaches have told and complimented us and said it’s a really deep lineup, which is us at our best.

Kentucky will now shift the focus to playing the loser of South Carolina and LSU on Friday afternoon with a spot in the SEC Baseball Tournament Final Four on the line. Kentucky will again face elimination as they face the Gamecocks or Tigers. Kentucky was run-ruled by LSU on Wednesday morning and struggled in Columbia against South Carolina a few weeks ago.