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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 19, 2015Patrick MasonAlex PerezGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina – 5 HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: First and foremost I want to say that we played a good game. Our guys got to them early and we didn't get as many pitches as we needed to extend the start. Really proud of how we played today. It wasn't a perfect game, but to walk away from this loss, and know that we left everything that we had on the field today, it makes you proud. Seniors like Alex and Erik and Brendon, those guys, I hate to see our season end the way it did. But I'm proud of how they went about their business today. Q. Alex, considering the way you guys won against Pittsburgh Saturday when you were down, did you feel like you had momentum to make another come back? ALEX PEREZ: Yeah, definitely we were on them all day, we just couldn't get the big hit. We had a bunch of guys in scoring position that one inning. And we had second and third, one out, couldn't get the job done. But we felt confident coming down from ‑‑ we were confident, just couldn't get the big hit. Q. You guys were successful against that pitcher in the season. Did they make adjustment or do anything differently this time around? ALEX PEREZ: To me and to Brendon, definitely he did. He didn't throw any cutters until later in the game. He started mixing in his change‑up. He kept us off speed. Q. Did you feel like you maybe left a few runs out there, when the bases were loaded, you got the one run early? ALEX PEREZ: Yeah, definitely. We got a couple, two‑out hits, that generated runs. So that kind of evened out a little bit there. But we definitely left a couple of runs. We left it on the field, gave everything we had, and we have no regrets. Q. Alex, how do you sort of sum up this year, last year so many of those close one‑run losses, this year a lot of improvement. What kind of shape do you think the program is in at this point? ALEX PEREZ: I think we got a lot tougher from last year, all those losses, we were able to find ways to win this year. I think it's definitely a step in the right direction for this program, for the team, actually, because we have a lot of young guys. They saw ‑‑ well, they know that last year we lost a lot of one‑run games, and we really put an emphasis on that this year, being able to gut out those close games and win them. So hopefully this is just a step in the right direction for our program, hopefully we keep going up, up and up. Q. What did you see from Kit in his outing, what did you see from him today? HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: I thought Kit threw the ball well. He came out in the first inning and got in a little bit of trouble. But when you're in the dugout when Kit is pitching, that's almost a standard inning for him. You're going to give up some hits, but he kind of figures a way to get out of them. I think in that fourth inning they just started to see the ball better. I think they might have been ‑‑ they did a good job getting their pitch early in the count, that inning. It obviously didn't start out the way we wanted for the inning to start out. But after that I think they strung together three or four hits in a row, and three consecutive hits on the first pitch of the at‑bat. He started missing up a little bit. I thought he competed well, threw the ball well, he looked like he had his normal stuff to me. Q. Fly ball to center was a huge play of the game. What did you see in that? HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: You know, I feel terrible for Saige, because Mike or anyone sells who's covered our team last year and this year, and Alex, Saige is one of the best defensive players I've ever had the luxury of coaching. And what he's done for this program and our pitching staff, the runs he's saved throughout the course of a season is invaluable. And I think he got a good jump on that ball, put himself in position to catch it and he lost it the last second with that sun. And you could tell everything looked normal until that very end. And I know he's taking that hard. And it's very untypical of Saige. And it's unfortunate for him. Q. You went to Aaron McGarity and got that double play ball, how big a moment was that in the game? HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: That was huge. We like that matchup. I think we knew that they were going to probably pinch‑hit Miller there. And we went out to the mound to talk to our infielders, we just said this is a good ground ball, especially left side, inside out swing, looking to get a ground ball to Alex, and Coach Woodard called a good pitch, and Aaron executed and Alex finished the play. It's not often you draw it up and execute it to perfection, but we needed it at that time. And I thought it was huge for our momentum. Q. The same question I asked Alex, where do you think the program is, do you see a stride this year, and what do you think overall? HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: Yeah, these seniors certainly are going to be a big loss to our program, because of how productive they were, and how great of leaders and people they are. But we do have a lot of young players who were fortunate enough to watch these guys on how to go about their business, and Alex will tell you and Brendon two years ago, we were in the ‑‑ when we were in the ACC tournament in the regionals, Alex and Brendon didn't have the most prolific offensive seasons that year. We have some of those young guys who can look at an Alex and see that if you stick to that process, keep believing, keep fighting, and that development will come. I like where we're at talent‑wise, and toughness‑wise, so I feel good about where we're going. Q. (INAUDIBLE) HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: Yeah, it was great. He struck out the right guys, too. It's not easy to strikeout Erik Payne twice in a game the way he's swinging the bat and the type of season he had. He did a great job. He was ‑‑ I thought his slider was a little bit better today than we had probably saw in Blacksburg. But we've seen him a lot and we know he's a good pitcher. And he it did a great job today. Q. A couple of guys including Alex and Erick were left off the All‑ACC team, what is your reaction to that? HEAD COACH PATRICK MASON: Typical probably head coach that ‑‑ there's so many good kids and good players in this conference, and it's a tough chore to honor X amount, you're always going to miss somebody, or guys ‑‑ I shouldn't say miss, but leave some guys out that are probably deserving. They both would have had my vote should we have been able to vote for our players. I think the world of both those guys. And I think they both had tremendous years. But like I said, there's a lot of good players in this conference. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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