|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP REGIONALS: BATON ROUGEMay 30, 2015Garrett DeschampCorey MerrillDavid PierceJake RogersBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA Tulane – 15 THE MODERATOR: Corey, talk a little bit about your outing. You had a pretty good stretch, the second through the rain delay. Talk about that. COREY MERRILL: Think the main thing was just fill up the zone, a lot of strikes, and that was my main goal going into today, and that's all I really had to do. The defense played phenomenal. Rogers was really good behind the plate, and that's all you can really ask for. THE MODERATOR: Garrett, big day at the plate for you. Talk about that, please. GARRETT DESCHAMP: Today was mostly me just seeing some pitches. I also had a couple walks and hit by pitch and that was important for me instead of guessing and lunging for the ball, I was actually seeing the ball really well. A lot of the other guys like Tyler Wilson and Hunter Williams came through with big RBIs. THE MODERATOR: Jake, you had two hits in the fourth and a three‑run double. Talk about that, please. JAKE ROGERS: I just tried to get a good pitch to hit and he threw one out there and got a good barrel on it, and it just happened the way it was. THE MODERATOR: Coach, seven runs in in the fourth for you this time. DAVID PIERCE: Yeah, it was nice to be on the other end of that one. Big day for us just to be able to continue play. I thought the guys came out with the right frame of mind, and Corey was really good. After the first I thought they had a couple of cheap hits that‑‑ they earned them, but it's not like they barreled it and really drove the ball or anything. And a missed play, but outside of that, I think he did a great job of overcoming that and then continuing to pitch well. Unfortunately the rain delay got him. Normally we'd even consider bringing him back, but he was too deep into the game and just didn't make sense with the length of the delay. Really proud of the way he pitched and the way we had great at‑bats all day. Q. Yesterday obviously was very‑‑ I would almost say humiliating for a lot of the players. They didn't expect to play like that. To come back and rebound that way, can you speak to the way you guys responded today. DAVID PIERCE: Well, I mean, the fortunate thing about it, it only counts as one game. We've been in situations like that before, and it's unraveled a little bit. But the resiliency of this group has shown throughout the year, and they showed that again the way they bounced back today. Q. What did you guys do during the rain delay? You guys played very well at Memphis when that whole weekend was affected by weather. I'm just curious whether you have some sort of secret recipe because you came back and kept piling more runs on. DAVID PIERCE: Yeah, we did. We did a good job of just continuing our at‑bats. I think more than anything we just got refocused after we found out what time the start time was going to be, and other than that just really chilled out and tried to stay off of our feet and watch some other games. Q. Jake, how concerned were you when the first inning was rough, the drop, had a chance to tag a guy out, dropped it, it was 3‑0, obviously you guys bounced back really well, but how concerned were you at that point? JAKE ROGERS: I wasn't very concerned. You know, I knew we were going to bounce back, and you've just got to have that confidence in your team. I just happened to drop it. It was a close play. I was upset about it, but I got over it really quick and I knew that we were going to come out and do what we needed to do. Q. Coach, have you decided who's going to start? DAVID PIERCE: Yeah, Alex will start tomorrow. Q. That was who I think people expected, but what's the thought process there? DAVID PIERCE: Well, it's his turn. He's up. He's ready. He's got the stuff to beat anybody left in the tournament. We've rode him in these situations a lot. He's pitched a lot of great Sundays for us, so I expect him to do it again tomorrow. Q. Coach, y'all left so many guys on base and it started again today. Did you kind of feel like things were going to start to break your way, or‑‑ DAVID PIERCE: I never felt a sense of panic at all today, even though we left runners‑‑ I think we left six on the first two innings, but I knew we had an opportunity to‑‑ I just felt like that we were seeing the ball well, and I felt like that we were eventually going to break through. They just continued to have good at‑bats, and fortunately it worked out. Q. Were y'all pretty calm as the game progressed and you fell down early? What was it like in the dugout? Did y'all start to get worried? Did you feel like anybody started to press or anything? JAKE ROGERS: I don't think we were worrying at all. I think we've been down before and we've come back. Obviously we just remained confident the whole game, that we were going to do that, and when we do that, I think we have success and we have the right mentality we're going to come out on top. Q. Garrett, this team has come a long way to get here to this point, and that's a great‑‑ that was a great milestone for the team to make it. How much more that at least you're going into playing on Sunday, how much if you had been 2 and out, how much would that have taken away from the season and been such a disappointing end for you? GARRETT DESCHAMP: It wouldn't have made the season disappointing at all. Obviously we would have been disappointed by our play in the postseason. We're not satisfied just getting to the regional or getting to even Sunday. Our goal was to get to Sunday and let Massey take the ball and see what we can do. But it wouldn't have been a disappointing season at all. Q. Jake, I think y'all spent the time during the rain delay down here. What's it like being around all this purple and gold? JAKE ROGERS: I don't think I want to answer that. GARRETT DESCHAMP: Green and blue looks better, just saying. Q. No matter what happens tonight, whoever y'all play tomorrow, y'all will have lost the last time you played that team. What is it like to know that there's that possibility of getting some revenge against whomever it is? JAKE ROGERS: I mean, they'd better be ready. We're going to come out confident and we're going to want to play, and they'd better be ready because we are. Q. David, did you know or did the team know that Tulane had never won in this stadium? DAVID PIERCE: No, I didn't. We have now. Q. To not just be able to win but to be able to win by this margin, it's the largest margin since 2001. To be able to come back and make this sort of statement after the way you opened the regional, just thoughts on that? DAVID PIERCE: I don't think it's that big of a deal. Truthfully I think it's more about playing clean and throwing strikes and having quality at‑bats. If that were the case, we could be, as you said, humiliated last night by such a deficit of getting beat. I think it's a postseason tournament, and right now today's goal was to be ready for tomorrow's goal. We put ourselves in a position to play another game, and that's all we're doing is playing one at a time. Q. Must be nice not to pull your hair out. DAVID PIERCE: Oh, it was very nice, and it was nice to get Jake some rest and get Cameron in there. Nice to get Matt Braud's average down to .500. A couple things was very rewarding. We didn't really play more subs because we don't really have any. Q. Garrett, what did you feel like went wrong last night, and do you feel like we won't be seeing that‑‑ was it jitters or other things and you feel like we won't be seeing that due lane team? GARRETT DESCHAMP: Like Coach said, we just didn't play clean. I felt like we played to the score a lot, and Coach always talks about don't play the score, play the game, and I think that's what happens. A couple of us, myself included, took some big swings instead of staying short to the ball and just working 90 feet at a time, and I think that's what happened, and tonight we definitely went back to how we have played the entire season and our success by getting people on base and coming up with a big hit. DAVID PIERCE: I thought we did a great job of not trying to do too much in some at‑bats today. We had RBI situations and we still took some walks in those situations and were able to bring the next guy up to the plate. Q. You went right back to Yandel today to finish it off after the rain delay. DAVID PIERCE: Tim was huge for us today because he ate up innings, he threw strikes and really preserved some bullpen, and I thought he was the right guy. Like I said earlier, it was unfortunate that we had to pull Corey because he was so good at the time, but if we extend this thing at all, Corey and Patrick both could possibly come back and help us late. Q. Corey looked like he wanted to go back in. Did the trainer tell him he couldn't? DAVID PIERCE: No, trainer didn't make the decision. After the delay he did want to go back in, and I would be disappointed if he didn't, but I made the decision just thinking that it was the right thing to do, and I felt like our bullpen was in a position to hold a five‑run lead, and Tim did a great job of doing that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|