Enrique Bradfield Jr. on winning the SEC tournament: A lot of teams don't approach it the way we do

Vanderbilt’s Enrique Bradfield Jr. has been one of the top players in the SEC and college baseball this season. After helping the Commodores capture the SEC tournament championship, the team over at the SEC Network caught up with Vanderbilt’s star outfielder on Monday to gauge his thoughts on capturing the conference tournament title and how the team is recuperating ahead of their opening regional game on Friday.

“I think that tournament, for us, was just it was another step in the process on the road of our season journey,” said Bradfield. “A lot of teams don’t approach that tournament in the way that we do, and we kind of approach each game in the same manner. It’s just a one-game tournament, and we just want to focus on getting better because we know that these games are crucial to being able to help us down the road and down the stretch in the future. Those experiences are things you can’t make up in training and pitcher verse hitter and other types of environments like that. So just getting familiarized with it was something that we really needed.

“First, we celebrated it. It was really fun. And then we moved forward. We kind of just take a reset, (and) get away from the field — hang out, do other things, go play golf, go watch a movie. Just kind of hang back and spend time with the guys. That’s the most important piece: just recovering our bodies, working our way back into the latter half of the week to get ready to play on Friday.”

After getting revenge on SEC East rival Florida in the semifinal round, the Commodores continue their dominating ways trouncing Texas A&M in the championship game. In contrast to their matchup against Florida on Saturday, where Vanderbilt took a suffocating lead early and did not let go, the matchup against Texas A&M was close until the eighth inning. The Commodores took a 5-4 lead into the 8th and then proceeded to double their score, leaving the inning with a 10-4 lead. That would be more than enough as Vanderbilt went on to win by that score capturing the school’s fourth SEC tournament championship.

Before the SEC Network team let Bradfield Jr. go, they had one more pressing question for the Commodores outfielder. Which would you prefer more: hitting a home run or stealing one at the wall?

“I think robbing a home run. The chances are fewer, and they don’t happen as often. Every game, I get four or five plate appearances. So, I can always go yard, I guess.