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NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP REGIONALS: BATON ROUGEJune 5, 2016Drew AvansDomenick CarliniChris EadesMatt RiserBaton Rouge, Louisiana Southeastern Louisiana - 3, Utah Valley - 2 MATT RISER: Yeah, finally got to play a baseball game. It was a little stir crazy there for a little while; to finally get outside and get a chance to finish off one and actually play a full ballgame. A full nine innings was nice. Enjoyed it. THE MODERATOR: Left fielder, Drew Avans, big RBI single in the first. Talk about that at-bat please, and also talk a little about their pitcher, if you don't mind. DREW AVANS: Their pitcher was just living away. So I was just looking to take the ball where it was pitched, that's it. Just trying to battle. THE MODERATOR: The pitch you got a base hit on, what kind of pitch was it? DREW AVANS: A fastball, I think. It was something over the middle of the plate. THE MODERATOR: Chris, big day at the plate. Three base hits. Talk about your day at the plate. CHRIS EADES: Biggest thing, every game I'm back there, I try to just catch and handle the pitching staff. I haven't been having the year I want but I'm just trying to do everything I can do to help us win. Their pitchers did a very good job today with commanding the zone and working the lineup. They did a very good job. THE MODERATOR: Starting pitcher, Domenick Carlini, talk about your outing, please. DOMENICK CARLINI: You know, might not have had everything I wanted today, but I just tried to battle and give my team a chance to win. I tried to just my catchers, trust the coaches, trust the team behind me. Team made a lot of good plays Ian me and I just tried to do whatever I could to help us win a baseball game. Q. The catch that Seward made to end the sixth, talk about that, because you've seen that guy make that catch routinely all the time. MATT RISER: It's exactly what we talked about. You look at the first game, we didn't make the plays. We talked about, if we played defense and it's a regional, we'll win it. We didn't do that the first ballgame against Rice. We booted a couple balls and obviously defensively, we made a lot of big plays in that second game today. Q. At this point in the regional, does it matter who you play next? Obviously you play both LSU and Rice each one time this season. MATT RISER: You know, both of them are solid clubs. You probably rather play Rice twice just from a home crowd standpoint to try to eliminate the home-field advantage a little bit. But either way, from a matchup standpoint, it really doesn't matter. Q. The decision to throw Robinson again today after going yesterday, how did you think he did, and how much is that going to set him up to maybe take a starting spot next year? MATT RISER: Yeah, really proud of him. He had a big role for us early. Was coming the back end of Mac like that early in the season, and Mac really got rolling there late; was going, seven, eight innings before we go to Josh Green and Kade Granier to finish things off. Obviously having to take Mac out in the sixth, bring in P-Rob in, that's where I thought the rain helped us. We were able to -- instead of after however long the rain delay was yesterday, we were able to bring him back on a day's rest, so to speak, and not have him bounce back after a five-hour rain delay. THE MODERATOR: Pitching plans for tomorrow? MATT RISER: Yeah, we're going Cedotal. He's the guy. He's been in this position a lot. Has a lot of experience with it and we're very confident in him. He's got his full week of being rested, so he's going to have his best stuff to run out there tomorrow and give us a chance to win. Q. Talk about the decision to keep Green in there in the ninth instead of going to Granier, who has been the closer? MATT RISER: Yeah, you talk about, he's got a good offense, if you look at them, they have some pop there in the order and surprisingly the ball was kind of carrying a little bit, like the wind was kind of blowing in. There's a couple balls, the play Drew made up against the wall there, I didn't think had any chance, thought it was a routine popup. Josh does a good job of keeping the ball down and induce a lot of ground balls, and the way we were playing defensively behind him, really wanted to stay with that match up and keep the ball in the yard and let our defense work. Q. You're the only player to get a hit after the first inning. What was difficult about hitting their pitchers and what did you find later? CHRIS EADES: Their guy had some good stuff today and I was just trying to use the middle of the field and not get pull happy. I was trying to really hunt the fastball and make good contact and whatever happens, happens. I was really just trying to be aggressive early in the count and get a pitch that I can drive. Q. The defense kind of being the theme today, was that a result of you guys settling down after the first game? MATT RISER: No. It's been back and forth for us all year. You'll see that defense we ran out there in Game 2, that's where we probably won 40 games, and you'll see that defense we ran out there in Game 1, which is probably what 19 of the 20 losses come from. We just got to keep that defense going. I've got to keep that confident cat there on left side of the infield, those guys keep rolling out there like that. Did a good job of handling some things. I thought we had a call or two that didn't go our way maybe at the plate. Dom does a good job, next pitch, gets a swing and miss, gets a couple punch outs, obviously they call a first base. I didn't see the replay but I think I ran a four-flat to first base on that to argue at least. Felt like he didn't make it. Thought we made the play there. But instead of the call that started a big inning for us, next pitch, we induce a double play ball, 6-3 double play and karma was on our side. Q. One of your real only slipups today was the home run. Can you talk about that play? DOMENICK CARLINI: Yeah, I think I started off 1-0 and seems like the story of my season, working behind, but I just left a fastball a little bit up. Yeah, I'm not -- after that, I wasn't worried about if they hit another one or another one. I was just trying to get contact and let my team make plays because they have been making plays all day, so I wasn't worried about the home run. Q. How confident are you in Kyle to have a guy like that who has pitched so well the majority of the year to be able to throw him in the third game of a tournament? MATT RISER: Yeah, what we just talked about. We gave some handshakes and some hugs, hey, great job, and look up and go, holy crap, we've got Cedotal going for Game 3. Feel pretty confident about that. I feel sorry for the loser for tonight having to face that guy tomorrow, especially on a full week's rest. Q. Just talk about the emotions of the whole day, you guys had to come back and finish this game, you scored a run, got back in it, and they scored a few more and you have to turn right around and play a game for your whole season. Just talk about the ups and downs of the whole day. DREW AVANS: After the first game, you had to for goat about it because we had nine more innings to play. The rain and stuff was trying to be a distraction, but you just kind of wait around, wait around, as soon as you come back out, you strap it on. The emotions, kind of frustrated because you're trying to play in the rain. Mother Nature just keeps winning; it will never lose, and that's pretty much it. Q. Now that you're through it, what was the biggest challenge of having to play one game over the course of two days? MATT RISER: You know, probably the biggest thing was exactly what you just asked is handling the ups and downs. I felt like we came out today on the second part of the game with the right energy. The same way we're different, so is the umpire, so is their other club. I thought they came out actually a little flat there. You saw we kind of, it worked in our favor there early. So it's just handling those emotions going up-and-down, and that's what you've got to do. Once you get to this level and you start to try to play for championships, keep moving on, keep your season going, you have to be able to handle those and that's where I thought we did a much better job in Game 2 than we did in Game 1 there. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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