HL Smith: They could not hit my off

Fuquay-Varina pitcher HL Smith reflects on the Bengals 2-0 win over Heritage on Thursday Apr. 6, 2023. Smith threw six shutout innings with three hits allowed and 10 strikeouts.

H L six shutout innings today. A two nothing win here at the battle of the Bone yard over heritage, uh, six shutout innings, double digit strikeouts. What was working for you today? A lot of curveballs, curveballs, working back, back foot, they couldn't hit the off coming on the back of it. Early morning game. Was there an adjustment you had to make just to kind of get into the rhythm. It wasn't more like the time, it was more like the mound. It was like steeper than this one on the, on the full. So it was like kind of hard to get down the plate, but I figured it out later on and you, you break up the no hitter there in the bottom of the sixth inning and you know, that ends up being the difference in the game. Uh, did anything change for you guys in the sixth inning there to push across those two or was it just a matter of time? Uh, just a matter of time? We figured it out. We were just too far out in front on a hanging curveball. We figured out later on and from the second inning through, I think about the 6th, 5th or sixth inning. Uh You worked around leaving runners in scoring position every inning. Um What did that take from you to be able to escape a 2nd and 3rd runner on third runner on second jam? I, I've always been the guy that like people go for when there's, when there's spots that need to be crushed up. And I just figured out how to do it today. You guys are nine and one here continuing on in this tournament. Obviously, if weather allows a big game tomorrow against Little Creek, you as a team, uh, what do you guys have to continue to keep this thing moving? We gotta keep working together because there's been a lot of like single out players that tend to be selfish and we kept working together today and hopefully we'll bring it back.