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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 17, 2014Mike BiancoJohn GatlinChristian TrentOMAHA, NEBRASKA Ole Miss – 2 COACH BIANCO: Just another low scoring, close baseball game here today. I thought both guys were terrific, Moseley and of course Christian. Moseley, although we knew he would be good, I didn't know he'd be that good. He's tremendous. I remember looking up at some point and we had three hits and realized we had played like 15 innings here and only had four hits. Just one of those where you had to get the timely hit. Finally, we get one with Holt off the bench, and he comes through with a huge hit that just squeaks in down the line. Then you've got to tip your hat to Tim Tadlock, they get a guy on, and two gutsy, back‑to‑back steals to get him into the game, but really proud of the way our guys responded. Something that we talked about before the game, our beat reporters know. Talking about the toughness and when bad things happen. Our guys seem very composed coming back into the dugout in the bottom of the ninth. Just proud we've got a couple freshmen off the bench with great at‑bats. And then, of course, John Gatlin gets a base hit. We talked about this in the Regional, but, you know, it's really neat, I think. One of the great things about this profession, about being a coach is to watch, I say kids a lot, but young men like John that are just terrific representatives of the university and when good things happen to good people. So it was one of those neat things to watch him get a base hit to win it. Q. Mike, just over a week ago you were in the same situation where you lose and go home and you have Christian on the mound. What is it about him that he seems to rise to the occasion? And also, Christian, talk about your outing. COACH BIANCO: I said it in the pregame in a couple of interviews, he's been our Saturday starter. We call Saturday the swing game and how important that is in a weekend series where you either won on Friday and you clinched the weekend on Saturday or you lose on Friday and he wins and evens the series up. He's done that all year long. He's undefeated. He hasn't had a bad outing all year long even in the games he hasn't won. He's gotten no decisions. He's been terrific. I think our guys have that confidence. Even though we lose the first game, I don't know if there's another better guy in the country to run out there in Game 2 than Christian. CHRISTIAN TRENT: Yeah, I thought it was big for me. It was all three pitches. Normally it takes a little while into the game to get my secondaries going. But I felt early on fastball command was good. Really got a good use of my slider and changeup. So I was able to keep them off balance and use those pitches in full effect. Q. Coach, with it having been so long really for anybody in this program to have not been here in an Ole Miss uniform, the chance to be able to stick around for a couple of days or maybe longer, I'm sure you hope longer, what does it mean in the big picture for you and younger guys on your roster, too, like Christian? COACH BIANCO: Well, obviously you come here to win. You don't come here to just be here for a couple days. And I know you didn't mean it that way. But I think our guys want to win. They don't just want to win a game. But, yeah, I think certainly it's significant. You hear so many years of 72, and 69, and all these different things. In this ballpark where everything just seems amplified. Every single pitch, every error, every walk, every base hit you can feel it in this stadium because runs are such a premium here. To pull one out to get in the win column here, to win in Omaha for the first time, I think somebody told me since 1969, is, I think, huge. But we'll enjoy it, go practice tomorrow, and get ready for another baseball game on Thursday. Q. There was a lot going on in that ninth inning as you went to bat. Just talk a little about your thought process throughout that whole thing and then the hit? JOHN GATLIN: You know, that's kind of why this team is so special. We contribute in so many different ways, and when the game is on the line like that we're each called upon in different situations. You know, every one of us feels like we're prepared for it and expected to get the job done. Then it just goes back to the toughness that we've been preaching all year. Q. Kind of expand on that, I mean everybody makes a lot about the 1 through 9. But today, the depth of the roster shows, and then, Coach, your thoughts on that as well, to have so many guys who stepped up when you're called upon? JOHN GATLIN: Yeah, we've done that throughout the entire season. 1 through 27 contributes each week in some form or fashion. And Coach Bianco does a great job making sure late in the game when it's getting tight like that, be swinging, get your legs loose and be ready to go. Like I said, we're expected to get it done, and we've been pretty successful at it. Q. Coach, I feel comfortable asking you this. In a win, are you a little concerned about your offense right now based on these two games or is it just two great pitching performances? COACH BIANCO: I think we faced two very, very good pitchers that pitched well. It's not only to be talented, but you on the other side, and we've only given up three runs. You know, so it's just baseball in this ballpark. That's what it is. I think every game is like that. I think we're better than what we've performed. So, fortunately we're still playing, and we haven't swung it great. But baseball's like that. Not to go down the bat story again, but it's like that. And one of the things we've been able to do is pitch well, play good defense, get the outings like we got from Christian today, and hang in there and wait. Our guys haven't panicked, but wait until we can put an inning together. It happened in Lafayette. We didn't score a lot, and scored a few runs on that second game then finally exploded. Q. Can you talk a couple seconds where your mind has been in the last couple days with things going on with your family? What was your mind like when you got that hit just now? JOHN GATLIN: You know, as most people would know, I guess, my grandmother passed away. I wouldn't think of anything else that she could be more proud of. And Coach Godwin asked me if I needed to go home. And I said, are you kidding me? She'd kill me if I came home right now. But, yeah, game's on the line like that, so much going through your head and she was definitely part of it. Q. Coach, you talked about Moseley earlier. You said you thought he was good. You didn't think he was going to be that good. What did you see from him that was pretty special? COACH BIANCO: Yeah, I mean it with the utmost respect. We knew that it would be a big challenge. But the fastball was so hard and had a lot of depth to it. I don't know if we realized it would sink where it would be a swing and miss. We swung through more fastballs today than I can ever remember the entire season, and so it was hard. Just kept sinking and then you look up at the Jumbotron and see just the action of it. There are times I thought it was a slider, and you look up and it's 92. Not a slider. Just a fastball that's got a lot of sink to it. He went mostly fastball. He only threw a handful of breaking balls the entire game. Q. Mike, what did you see as your options in the ninth, and why Gatlin? COACH BIANCO: Well, we had used a lot of people. Dalton was in that spot and Preston Overbey's spot. We had pinch hit earlier with Perdzock, and Overbey's spot, Dalton comes in. But Dalton, though it listed him as a switch hatter, he's been batting mostly left‑handed the second half of the season. It was one of those where we knew that we had to make a change. We knew that if we made the change, it would bring in the right‑hander. But who is going to make the change first to make it happen? We thought that was our best option. Certainly we wanted Gatlin in there to face the left‑hander. They bring the right‑hander in, and like we said, just hit it somewhere, John. They moved the five infielders in, and at that point I think when you're on the other side of the ball, it's just a difficult situation. Q. Christian, it seemed like you were especially good with runners on base, runners in scoring position. What was the key in those tight spots? CHRISTIAN TRENT: Yeah, it's more of a mindset that you have to lock things down when they get runners on, especially in scoring position. It's time to make the pitches and focus a lot harder on what you're doing. It's a little bit of a tighter window when you're throwing into the glove, and I just felt like I was able to use all three pitches, like I said, when I needed to. I think it worked out good for me. Q. Mike, you talked about the opposing pitchers, but Christian and Chris kind of allowed you guys to have that walk‑off win today and even hang in the Virginia game. How important have they been in the last two games? COACH BIANCO: They've been great. You look at the records and watch what they've done for now. I don't know how many weeks it is, 16, 17 weeks. I agree with Christian. What will get lost in this game is I think their first three hits were doubles. It seemed like there were a few innings early on with a guy at second base, and he had to make pitches to get out of innings. Once he got through a couple of those, it seemed like he was able to roll. You're exactly right. It's one of the things, the offense has gotten a lot of credit here which it deserves, but our starting pitching has been really solid. Our bullpen, our defense has been solid. That is one of the reasons we're still playing is we do everything pretty well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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