|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 18, 2016Willie AbreuJacob HeywardMichael MediavillaJim MorrisOmaha, Nebraska Arizona - 5, Miami - 1 THE MODERATOR: Coach, tough game tonight. Give us an overview from your dugout. COACH MORRIS: Well, I mean, they got a start on us. Gave them some opportunities. Pitched great for us all year. He walked a couple of guys and hit a guy and they got one hit that doubled down the right field line, which was a huge hit for them with two outs. Thought we might get out of it with one run. He gets a two-out hit. Something we didn't do when we had guys on base tonight. We had the bases loaded. We had first and second a couple times and called a guy -- third called strikes. I thought when it was 3-0 and got them back it was we got one run, but the momentum changed a bit we had to go back out and stop them. We didn't. They got two more runs, made it 5-1. And Bannister pitched a great game. He's got good stuff. Both teams played good defense. They got a big hit; we didn't. Bottom line. They've got an outstanding club. Q. Michael, just what happened in the first inning? MICHAEL MEDIAVILLA: I just had trouble finding command. Trying to do too much. And I just deviated from everything I set to do and told myself to do, which is not try to do too much, and I did. I let them break it open in the first inning. Q. Willie or Jacob, what was Bannister trying to do against your offense keeping you off balance? WILLIE ABREU: Making pitches and throwing a lot of strikes and hitting spots. Whenever a pitcher does that, they'll be successful. All his pitches were getting around for strikes, and he continued to pound the zone, so he did well. JACOB HEYWARD: He committed all of his pitches, threw a lot of strikes. And just didn't swing the bat when it was our time. Q. Willie and Jacob, just a little bit, you guys have come back so many times this year, it seemed to be your deal. Ten stranded base runners. How frustrating was it to get guys on, especially with two outs and not be able to bring guys home? WILLIE ABREU: Very, very frustrating, obviously. We pride ourselves in big two-out hits. Usually we get them. That's the game of baseball. We're going to come back on Monday and do what we gotta do to win a ballgame. That's what we do. We don't stop fighting. Never in the game did we think it was over. We just ran out of time, is the way we look at it. JACOB HEYWARD: Yeah, it was tough. I don't know, two outs is really hard to get a runner in to score in the College World Series. So I think we've just gotta do a better job getting the guys on earlier and moving the runners over, bunting, doing a lot of things we like to do. So two outs are definitely the hardest thing to do. You're in the College World Series; that's the tough thing to do. We just have to do better getting runners on base sooner. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, obviously the score was what it was. But did you walk away feeling encouraged at all by the fact, hey, we outhit these guys? Actually, we kind of shut them down in the second half of the game with the bullpen. Are there some positives you walk away maybe feeling okay? COACH MORRIS: Well, both those things are positive and we played good defense and made some plays. But you gotta get big hits, too. We didn't get the big hits. We left too many guys on base, which we've been getting big hits. And that outhitting and not outrunning, it doesn't work. And just the bottom line. So we've got to get big hits. We've been doing that. Gotta credit Bannister in particular. He pitched very well. But the lefty came in, threw good right behind him. And they outplayed us. They got the big hits. Right down the right field line, when it was a check swing that hit down the corner, but they got some big hits when they needed them. Q. You guys had nine hits. A lot were line drives, three doubles, I think. One big factor, you only got the lead-off runner on once. How big a factor was that not being able to start the innings with runners on base? COACH MORRIS: It's tough. Because they're good. Their catcher is outstanding. He's hard to run on. We got some guys on Heyward. Got a couple of infield hits, one of them a bunt. We didn't get that big hit. It was frustrating when you leave guys on. We took three third called strikes or three big third strikes in key situations. They were good pitches. They make good pitches. But we gotta get our acts in in that situation. Q. The challenge now is you guys came in here with so much hope, and now it's survival. How do you get these guys going for Monday? Obviously win or go home Monday. COACH MORRIS: You gotta just think about it one game at a time. Win a game, win a game, you win one and you think about the next one. You're not thinking about getting eliminated. I don't think anything like that. If you've got that in mind, you're in trouble. You just gotta go out thinking about winning, go out, do what you gotta do, good defense. Team gets nine hits but get guys in scoring position and keep playing the game. We've done that this year. These guys have played hard all year. They played hard tonight. We just didn't get the big hit. Q. You've been here many times. But it's always the goal of getting to the College World Series. How do you keep your teams from being too jacked up, too excited, especially early in this first game? COACH MORRIS: Well, I thought that was probably the case with Mike in the first game. I don't know about anybody else. But I thought he was a little excited overthrowing. Didn't locate like he normally does. Didn't get ahead of the guys. And their guy, Bannister, came in right after they scored those three runs. Of course, that kind of gives you a chance to take a deep breath, three-run lead, and he came back, boom, boom, boom, hitting his spots. We didn't do that tonight. And the pitcher's the name of the game, as we all know. 75 percent of this game is pitching. We gave him some opportunities. They got the big hit. Give them that credit. Q. Over the years have you seen that happen with other pitchers, with other players? Is that a common problem? COACH MORRIS: Whoever gets hot. These guys are hot. They've been on the road 20 days to get to this thing. They played in some tough situations, and to be able to get to where they're at. And they're really believing in themselves. They're well coached. And they're good players and they hit line drives. Boy, that's what it takes. Q. Who is going to start for you on Monday? And then also do you know anything about Santa Barbara? Have you had a chance to look at them at all yet? COACH MORRIS: I really didn't get to watch the game today because we went and took BP and got here in time. So I'll probably -- we'll probably announce that tomorrow, and hadn't really thought about that very much. I'd like to see them play before we do that. So we'll see them on TV tomorrow. Q. But you haven't named the starter yet? COACH MORRIS: No. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. 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
|