SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

May 24, 2025

Jay Johnson

Jared Jones

Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

LSU Tigers

Postgame Press Conference

Ole Miss 2, LSU 0

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, great job by Ole Miss. They've obviously pitched very well here. They certainly did in this game, as they did against Florida and Arkansas. Proud of our team. Had an excellent regular season.

Really excited about playing home baseball next week, hopefully the next two weeks, and we'll get ready for that. Get home tonight, get a day off tomorrow, see the lay of the land on Monday and get right to work right after that.

Q. Jared, since the third inning yesterday you guys haven't had any run support. What are you seeing out there, and how concerned are you about the offense?

JARED JONES: Yeah, I think it's baseball. I think there's going to be ups and downs, highs and lows, but we've got to be tougher mentally to handle those, and we weren't that today at all, and we'll be better for it and better moving forward.

Q. Jared, I was wondering what you knew about Cade Townsend coming into this game and what did you see from him? What did he give Ole Miss the first four and two-thirds?

JARED JONES: Yeah, good heater, upper 90s, and then obviously a low 90s slider. Kind of one-speed hitting, and we just didn't do a great job of separating pitches today. Kind of let him off the hook a few times in three-ball counts, and doesn't lead to a lot of success. Myself included, I've got to do better in the box at the top of the order and get things going.

Q. How have you seen the pitching maybe improve across the conference over the course of this year?

JARED JONES: Yeah, it's been a tough year, obviously. I think there's a lot of great arms throughout the league and country. I just think it's the SEC and you're going to get the best players day in and day out. There's no time to make excuses and no time to feel bad for yourself. There's going to be another game for us this season, and it's about getting on to that one.

Q. Jared, when you're facing a team you haven't seen this year and you have short time to prepare for an opposing pitching staff, how difficult does it make it for you guys batting?

JARED JONES: I mean, it's baseball. You're not really facing the pitcher, you're facing the ball. It's the same thing pretty much day in and day out, upper 90s fastball with some sort of slider or changeup.

You've got to be prepared to go out there and see something you've seen before. I've been in the league for three years; I don't feel like I haven't seen anything that I'm going to see throughout the rest of this year. It's just about getting back into character, slowing them down at the plate, and taking tougher at-bats.

Q. What's it like to have guys like Shores and Mayers that can eat innings completely and what they did today against Ole Miss's offense?

JARED JONES: Yeah, that was huge for us. I hope that doesn't get overlooked by how all three of those guys threw today. It's tough to go out there and be as bad on offense as we were, I guess, would be the word, when they threw as well as we did.

We talked before the game about how four to five runs would win the game, and it would have, and we weren't able to come through in that, but those guys gave us a really good opportunity to win this game.

Q. Jared, have you noticed any sort of pattern that pitchers are trying to execute against you guys over the last couple of games?

JARED JONES: You know, I think not necessarily a pattern, I just think guys are executing pitches and we're kind of getting ourselves out at times. I think we could be better battling and getting pitch counts up and then obviously just moving forward, it's about getting on to the next game. This game, as much as it hurts and as much as we want to maybe it dwell on it, we've just more got to learn from it and move on.

Coach Johnson always says, learn the lesson, leave the moment. That's going to be the biggest thing for today.

Q. Jared, I do want to ask you about the quality opponents you face in this conference and how does that prepare you for the NCAA Tournament and also Omaha?

JARED JONES: Yeah, it's a great training ground for Omaha. It's a 30-game playoff in the SEC. You've got to go out there and every game counts the same, and then obviously here in the SEC tournament you're playing for a chance to host a regional and a super regional and then even better, win a tournament.

That's something I didn't get to do while I was here at LSU, and it's on to the next one with regional and whatever else is ahead of us.

Q. About that playing at home, earning that right, how do you use this next couple of days to hit the reset and get ready for what you know is ahead of you?

JARED JONES: Yeah, got to get back to Baton Rouge, get recovered and get rested and get right back to work. I'm sure we'll have practice either Monday or for sure on Tuesday, and it's just about getting right back into our character of play and being ready to show up on Friday or Thursday, whenever the regional starts.

Q. How does this tournament, how does this conference prepare you guys for the postseason and the quality opponents you'll face?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, I think he said it well; when you look at what is ahead of us, this point forward, we won't see anything we haven't seen from a talent perspective. I thought 15 of the 16 teams could compete to probably go to Omaha this year, and that's because of the talent on the field makes it a very competitive environment.

I think our team, how they handled the schedule, the consistency in which they did, should play with great confidence going forward, and that's what I expect them to do.

Q. First shutout loss for you guys this season. Would you credit more what Ole Miss was doing or are there more concerns as you get ready for postseason play?

JAY JOHNSON: Well, they gave up one on Wednesday, they gave up two yesterday, and they gave up zero today, so they obviously have a formula that works good. We hadn't seen them. I was immediately impressed when I came to their game on Wednesday night at how much better their team has gotten from last year and then throughout this year. It's a credit to those players and the coaching staff there.

I think as Jared said, there's things that we will attack to do better that we can control. Some of it is the opponent, making it difficult. Some of it's baseball, some of it's the day. One of the assistants for Vanderbilt said something to Coach Yeskie about just throw it over the plate today because the ball isn't going anywhere. Maybe that's part of it. I don't think it necessarily was a factor for us. Furniss hit the homer for sure about 20 minutes after he had said that.

But we'll get back to work. It's the only way that I do it and operate.

Q. You mentioned yesterday one of the reasons for pitching Kade and Anthony was to get some other guys opportunities today. Jaden, Chase and Jacob all go out and looked pretty good out there. Did you see what you wanted to from them?

JAY JOHNSON: Oh yeah. Three hits, two runs, that's going to work most of the time for us. I think that's the second time in four years we've been shut out. So credit Ole Miss. Three is usually going to be enough, and I would bet on it being enough, and what a performance by those guys. Really happy with how Jaden -- I thought he took a step forward last week at South Carolina. I thought he took another step forward today against a good team. I thought Chase was outstanding, and Jacob has been working his tail off. Really glad we got that opportunity for him today.

Q. With Chase specifically, how have you seen him improve over the last couple weeks and start to round into form a little bit?

JAY JOHNSON: Yeah, I think he just needed time. I think that -- I say this all the time to our local media, the best coach you're ever going to have in your life is playing time and getting on that mound. Because he's a third-year guy you gorget, I mean, he only threw 18 innings as a freshman before he had the injury and missed all of last year.

I think the best thing we probably did for him was start him and get the innings up and get the experience up and had to grind through some of that, but he did. He's obviously incredibly talented. He's got a great head on his shoulders. We have some experience underneath us. I think that's leading to confidence, confidence, more conviction, more conviction, better pitches, and really excited about that.

Q. You guys haven't struck out that much during this little cold streak, but I think 17 fly-outs in the last 15 innings. Are you guys just getting over the ball a little bit too much? Is that just a product of not quite executing the plan?

JAY JOHNSON: Well, I think it would be a bad answer by me if I generalized it. I think it's a little bit more of a guy-by-guy question. I think there was a situation where we had a couple runners on, and it felt like the game sped up in one at-bat and we expanded the zone and ended up striking out. I think we expanded the zone the very next inning, like with the lead-off we had a 2-1 count, we swung at a ball.

Then we get the guy in the stretch. We had a little tough luck. I put Jake in motion on a 3-2 pitch and Ethan hit a line drive right at the third baseman for a double play. If that goes down the line, it's second and third, no outs, or maybe a run on second and one in, because Jake runs so well.

But yeah, I mean, I would say some guys expanding the zone, some guys missing their pitch, some guys beneath the ball. You can't be beneath the ball when a guy is running it up there 97 miles an hour like that.

I think it's a guy-by-guy thing, and having been through this and faced enough good pitching over 20 plus whatever years of doing this, the most important thing is to remain positive, stay with it, be very detailed, task-oriented in your plans for each of them, and that's what we'll do this week.

Q. Did you get what you wanted out of this, these two games?

JAY JOHNSON: Well, I wanted to win. I really think it's disrespectful and not competitive for anybody to not go for it. We certainly didn't -- we did that. We just would have liked to have scored a few more runs today.

The main goal is the NCAA Tournament, but I feel really good about the three guys that threw today, obviously felt good about what we accomplished with the two pitchers last night.

We had one error in two games, which was a pick-off move. Offensively, no secret, we'll work at being better, and I expect us to be better next Friday.