RUSTON, La. – Louisiana Tech baseball head coach Lane Burroughs spoke with the media Tuesday. He recapped No. 14 LA Tech clinching the Conference USA West Division title over the weekend and previewed this week's pair of matchups against Old Dominion.
 
Lane Burroughs quotes
 
Opening statement:
"It was a great weekend for the Bulldogs. We're not going to apologize for celebrating, and we enjoyed ourselves. Friday night didn't start out so well, I thought we didn't play with much intensity or much urgency at all. I told our team that it felt like they were the ranked team and we were playing around .500. They're a really good club, and they had something to play for to get in the tournament. They outplayed us, and still as bad as we played we had a chance to win the ballgame. We put ourselves in a position to win it on Friday night. That's a sign of a good team, and I was proud of how our guys battled. Coming back Saturday, I was proud of how of our guys battled. Ryan Jennings was the answer on Saturday, there's your momentum on the next day. He pitched outstanding. He keeps getting better each time out, and right now, I think he's our best pitcher. He allowed a run in the first inning and then threw up six zeroes. You can't ask much more than that. I said Friday night we needed two complete games, and we came one out from getting another one out from Cade [Gibson]. He pitched really well. We had some huge defensive plays that game. You had the relay where the runner was trying to take the lead and win the ballgame for them, but [Cole] McConnell got it in and Alex [Ray] made a good throw to Jorge [Corona] at home plate to tag him out. It gave us a shot, and we knew coming up with the top of the order we had a chance. Moving on to Sunday, we knew we had a chance to play for a championship. When we heard Southern Miss had lost, it kind of ignited our team. We played better after we found out they had been defeated by FAU. I thought our guys picked up the pace, and we were able to keep the pressure on and run-rule UTSA and win the West."
  
On the sticking with the same starting nine over the past few weeks:
"You all can Xerox it. We're at that time of year where our guys are finally healthy. Really, t's the first time all year offensively we've been that way. Those guys will need to play, but saying that, it's that time of year. It's where you separate the men from the boys. If you're an everyday player, you've got to play every day. We're coming down the home stretch with the postseason, and you've got to show up every day and play. Our love lineup, and look, we have guys on the bench who can't get in the game who've been having great years for us. You mentioned Ben Brantley, Adarius Myers, Shemar Page and Bryce Wallace, we've got really, really good players that are having trouble getting in the ballgame because our starters are playing so well. Right now, you've got your nine that you've got, and you've got to roll with them. Hopefully we will have the chance, though, to get those other guys so at-bats."
 
On this week's matchup against ODU:
"They've got great players, and Virginia is a great state for baseball. Coach Finwood is one of the best coaches in our league. He's really good and is a baseball man. I really respect him and his staff. They lead the country in home runs, and they have some older guys like we do that have battled some injuries, redshirted or got a COVID year back. They're putting up big numbers like our guys. They have some younger guys who are also really, really good. They've got two really good starters and a few nice bullpen pieces. I think you look at us, ODU and UTSA, you've got three of the better offensive teams right there. It's kind of ironic we go UTSA, ODU and then right back to UTSA. We've got our work cut out for us. They're one of those teams that feels like every game they play that they're going to win. I'm looking forward to competing against them."