The league is going to be tough, but, if you look at last year, the league helped prepare us for what we were up against in the tournament. It's tough teams all the way through, and that's good. It's a tough league.

Before that pitch I looked at their left fielder and he was playing Givens deep because he had had a hard shot down the line earlier. I looked at the shortstop, because my concern was not the left fielder. I knew darn well he couldn't get to it. My question was, could the shortstop get to it? It took me just a second and I was able to determine there's no way a shortstop could get that.

If you remember, he really started coming on at the end of last year. He hit the ball real well again today. We only had two hits through the first five innings, and he had them both.

They walked four guys and hit another in the seventh inning. When you're on our side in a situation like that, before you know it you have five earned runs on only one hit.

It is what is in the minds of folks now.

For Colton, I think the offensive part of his game is going to be OK if he doesn't come in putting too much pressure on himself. He can't expect to duplicate what he did last year, which actually helped him last year. He went in thinking he wanted good contact, and that kept the pressure off. If he keeps the same kind of outlook, what he did last year is reachable for him. It really is.

They had a no-hitter going against us through five. We had a one-hitter on them through six.

That's not bad for a freshman. The two he walked were in the fifth. We threw one of them out trying to steal and we turned a double play to get the other one.

I've been working with eight guys. There are still some things to piece together, but things are coming around.

The good news is that there is some experience there today that we should be able to pull out of the game. And I sure hope we do.