‘REAL EMOTION’
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Daniel induced a groundball to second baseman Luke Jarvis who threw it on to Anthony at first for the final out of the game. The celebration was on. Players jumped off the bench and out of the bullpen to rush on the field and join their teammates in the dogpile.
It was Auburn’s first regional win since 1999, and more importantly for that group, it was vindication from what happened in Tallahassee the year before. They avenged that loss, making history in the process.
Thompson: “The entire essence of sports is when you can get to a moment, that eutopia-type feeling, and it’s real emotion. It’s not fabricated, it’s not manufactured, it’s genuine and it’s real. I got a ring from Dr. Goodlett. I stood in the middle of that team and said, ‘I’m going to do a magic trick.’ I had a baseball and I started squeezing it and squeezing it and squeezing it, and I basically dropped the baseball and I popped up a ring in their face.”
Greenhill: “That was surreal. Especially when Coach Thompson took that baseball and turned it into a ring. His little magic trick, he called it. It was a sense of we accomplished something. We accomplished a goal that we had set forth at the beginning of the season. Those guys were one pitch away the year before from moving on. We had set a goal that weekend to come in, dominate and win the regional.”
Gross: “It’s climbing that ladder. You talk about the Pistons having to topple the Lakers and the Bulls having to top the Pistons. It’s just been one step at a time. We’ve been slowly conquering that one level after the next, and that was a giant Auburn baseball had to slay.”
Thompson: “What’s crazy is that next week when that ball bounced off Steven’s glove and went over that fence, that was so unfair for that team. Because that team had brought me one of my greatest moments I’ve ever been a part of in coaching just the week before. You talk about the highs and the lows. But that team, that group of men, that coaching staff, they brought me one of the most joyous moments that I’ve ever had in my career. We’ve got that to share the rest of our lives no matter what happens moving forward."
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2018 Raleigh Regional final: 'A giant Auburn baseball had to slay' - Auburn Tigers Official Athletic Site
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