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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 14, 2015

OMAHA, NEBRASKA

TCU 10 - LSU 3

THE MODERATOR: Representing LSU, head coach Paul Mainieri, starting pitcher Jared Poche and shortstop Alex Bregman. Coach, an opening statement.

COACH MAINIERI: Not much to say today, quite frankly. We started out as a really outstanding pitching performance by Jared Poche. I think he retired the first nine batters he faced, struck out the side in the first, then things just kind of unraveled for us there in the fourth inning. It's amazing. I've been in this game a long time. And sometimes you see things you haven't seen all year or for years. And we just had a couple of missed plays there and they got a couple of clutch hits and things just kind of spiralled out of control for us there. It was amazing the turnaround, because in the bottom of the third inning, we came through with a clutch base hit by Fraley with two outs, and 99 out of 100 times a runner scores on that ball. And somehow he didn't score this time. Their outfielder made a perfect throw, their catcher made a good tag, blocked the plate and we weren't able to score. And the turnaround was so immediate. It spiraled out of control there. And Morrison kid was making a lot of good pitches and pitching the way he can. And he let us get ourselves out a lot. And unfortunately the score became kind of one-sided there and kind of took the wind out of our sails. So what we're going to do is regroup. We have a practice day tomorrow. We'll get ready to play again on Tuesday, whoever we play, whether it's Vanderbilt or Fullerton. And we'll regain our composure and our poise and confidence, most importantly, and get ready to play on Tuesday.

Q. Alex, I guess Coach talked about Preston, what he's able to do to you guys. Can you talk a little bit about what his approach was and why he was able to keep you guys so off balance?
ALEX BREGMAN: He was throwing three pitches for strikes. That's what he's done his whole career. He's the winningest pitcher in TCU history for a reason. He's a competitor. And he got a lot of weak contact. He lived off the barrel towards the end of the bat. And we didn't get him up in the zone enough today.

Q. Paul, looking at Jared's outing, what did you kind of see differently from him from the first three innings and after that error, seemed like he was a little different. What were you seeing differently from him?
COACH MAINIERI: His first three innings were tremendous. He comes out in the first inning with all the pressure in the world on his shoulders, and he strikes out the side and gets nine up, nine down, and quite frankly should have had 11 up, 11 down. The next two batters hit feeble ground balls right back to him and he didn't execute the play. And I'm sure when he gets an opportunity to speak, he'll tell you he should have made those two plays. And then he got two strikes on a left-handed hitter and hung a curveball with two strikes. The kid got a base hit. And then the five-hole hitter, the right-handed hitter, he made a fairly decent pitch. It was on the outer half of the plate and the kid drilled it up the middle and all of a sudden it's two runs. So those things happen when you give the other team some things -- I think as the game went on then he kind of lost command. He had a couple of walks. He hit a batter on a 1-2 count with the bases loaded and that's very uncharacteristic of him. But I think kind of his tank kind of ran a little bit dry there as the game went on.

Q. Jared, talk about that fourth inning. Do you typically do the soft toss on a play similar to those to first? And after the first one, what was going through your head?
JARED POCHE: I think that was a big part of the game at that point. I threw those two errors, the momentum definitely shifted their way. I should have been better than that, made that play. Definitely my fault. But after that first one, I tried to flush it. I didn't let the next one -- I didn't let the second one -- I didn't let the first one impact the second one. And it was just two plays I should have made. And that's my fault.

Q. Coach, I guess tomorrow or Tuesday, Alex will be on the mound for you. I know he's been rock solid all year for you. What are you expecting out of a freshman on this stage and with your season on the line?
COACH MAINIERI: I would expect that he would go out and pitch the way he has all year. He'll attack the hitters and hopefully get ahead of hitters and use his pitches the way he has all year. He's been outstanding for us. He's handled every challenge that's come his way. He's been totally composed and poised and a great competitor. And I know one thing, he'll give his very best effort and that's all I'll ask of him.

Q. Jared, you retired the first nine batters. Did you feel your stuff was working up until that fourth and fifth inning against TCU?
JARED POCHE: Yeah, I think so. I was throwing each side of the plate -- fastball, curveball through the first time through the order. I was definitely in command of my pitches and one thing led to another and I kind of lost command, like Coach was saying, and they made some clutch hits.

Q. Jared, why did you throw it, not throw it like a bullet on the two plays?
JARED POCHE: It was just a reaction play. I guess just not sure why I lobbed it like that, but if I do it again I would set my feet and hit him in his chest.

Q. Paul, you mentioned Lange, and you expect him to pitch well tomorrow. The question seems to become do you have enough pitching to get through the loser's bracket which is something that you were very much hoping to avoid? At times your relievers have been good and sometimes not so good. Your thoughts at this point?
COACH MAINIERI: My thoughts at this point, quite frankly, Scott, is let's try to win one game. We'll take it after that. We're going to play a very formidable opponent on Tuesday, whether it be Fullerton or Vanderbilt. We'll have a great pitcher going for us and they will too. And it will be tough on win on Tuesday. We're going to be playing one of the best teams in the country. So let's hopefully get a win on Tuesday, take another day off and then we will get going again on Thursday. At that point we'll figure it out. I feel confident in our staff, and obviously Jared will have to come back for one of those games. So we're just going to have to piece it together. Obviously we're going to have to swing the bats better than we did, play better defense than we did. Today was just really kind of just a totally bad game for us. I don't know how else to describe it. It wasn't really -- outside of the first three innings of the way Jared pitched, we really didn't do anything very well today. It was just a total collapse for us on a big stage. We picked kind of a rough time to just not play our best baseball. But we know we're a much better team than what we demonstrated today. But baseball can be a very humbling game. I think we all thought we were ready to go today. We were very confident. Had great few days of practice. And we were ready. And we started out well, and, like I said, Fraley got a big hit. The kid throws him out at the plate and the next thing you know we give up a couple of runs and give up a four-spot and we're kind of out of the game and we never got a lot of great swings off. We've just got to regroup now and win Tuesday and after Tuesday we'll reanalyze the situation and see where we are.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
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