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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 19, 2016Tanner GardnerHunter HargroveTim TadlockOmaha, Nebraska TCU - 5, Texas Tech - 3 COACH TADLOCK: Congratulations to TCU. Ball has bounced our way quite a bit lately. We've been fortunate. Today the ball didn't bounce our way. Baker made a good swing on probably a pitch that wasn't executed. But that's baseball. He's a hell of a college baseball player, that's for sure. And it's a double-elimination tournament for a reason. So we'll show up Tuesday and be ready to go. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Tanner and Hunter, just minimally how do you guys bounce back from a loss like this today? HUNTER HARGROVE: I think we'll be fine. Like Coach Tadlock, said the ball bounced our way quite a few times coming up leading up to this tournament. But no, I think we'll be good. I think the mindset in the locker room will be fine. We've got plenty of leadership that will set the younger guys on the right track. TANNER GARDNER: You know, we always face adversity day in, day out, and it's just how you overcome it is, you know, basically what we're trying to do. And we're going to come out on Tuesday and ready to go. Q. Knowing how the ball doesn't travel here, did you think it was out when he hit it, or did you think that ball was maybe not going to get out of the ballpark? TANNER GARDNER: He hit it well. HUNTER HARGROVE: The same. Q. Tanner, Hunter, what was it like with the strikeout pitches that TCU was throwing today; was it something you hadn't seen from them before or just better stuff? TANNER GARDNER: I think they were mixing pitches well. That really caught us off guard and we came from a series against ECU where they did a good job mixing as well. But I think that was ultimately what it came down to is they were mixing pitches really well and he has a good slider, so, yeah, they've got some good arms. HUNTER HARGROVE: Same thing as Tanner said. They came out there with a game plan and they stuck to it and we were just missing, I guess, some of the pitches. And that's usually not our team. And we're going to be ready to go next time. Q. Hunter, on your go-ahead hit, that looked like you hit a pretty good pitch yourself; the pitch was in on the fist, wasn't it? HUNTER HARGROVE: Yeah, but that's my favorite. I mean, I just try to get a good piece of the ball, I saw a fastball I haven't really seen fastballs all day. So I saw one and I just swung. Q. I'm sure Robert Dugger is probably really down in the dumps right now. What do you tell him in this situation, obviously a team sport and takes all the guys out the field, but what do you relate to him after the game? TANNER GARDNER: I guess just keep your head up. That's the biggest thing we can say to him. And that's going to -- it's going to be in his head for the rest of his life. But it's not that -- it's one pitch. You can easily move on from that. I'm sure he'll be ready to throw on Tuesday, because we'll need him. He's one of our better arms out of the bullpen. HUNTER HARGROVE: He's been one of our dudes all year, coming in, throwing strikes. Especially at ECU, he was our guy. And today just happened and we were just going to need him to be ready to go because he's our guy. So we're going to be needing him. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, I guess the way Robert was pitching in the ninth looked like he was kind of missing some spots where he wasn't really sure about his command. What did you think about how you wanted to pitch to Luken? COACH TADLOCK: We were trying to get a ball down the way and the ball was middle-in. And really you're pitching at the back end of the game. It's going to be happen every now and again. Those guys pitching back there have to be the toughest guy on the team because when you do give one up, you need to be able to flush it and move on to the next game. And part of it, you know, you're sitting there watching the game from our seat, and he didn't -- you can blame me if you want to. We could probably have went to somebody that was commanding the ball a little bit better. He didn't have great command today, and in hindsight you can definitely see that. Q. With how you know this ballpark plays, obviously a pitcher's park, the way the wind was blowing in, how surprised were you to see TCU get four of their runs off of two home runs? COACH TADLOCK: Not really a surprise. The changeup to Warner was really in the middle of the plate. He's got some pull power. And Baker can hit it out any park at any time. And the ball was carrying from the gap over to the foul pole. That's the one place it was carrying. So not that surprised at all. Q. Just seeing it from the opposing side this year, what's been your impression of Luken Baker and the kind of player he is, and how difficult is it to just contain him? COACH TADLOCK: Really gotta get the ball in on him. I mean, really when you've got to make a pitch, you've got to get in. That's where you can get him. And obviously you can get everybody down the way if you can execute it. So if there's a fine line there, where a guy's that strong has that kind of bat speed. He's got some bat quickness. He's a polished hitter. Just as impressed as the ball hitting the four hole earlier with a man on second. I mean, he's done that since he was a sophomore in high school. And he's been a good hitter for a long time. Q. You and the team have just done a great job as far as staying level-headed, not getting high or low at all. But what do you tell them after the game to just be able to flush that type of loss? COACH TADLOCK: Biggest thing is you're going to get dealt some adversity in baseball. And you gotta know how to handle it. These guys know how to handle it. Nobody's saying, hey, tournament's over for us. I wouldn't think anybody's planning on us winning any games and definitely not planning on us playing next Monday. But it's not going to be easy to get these guys to go. They like to show up. They like to play. And they'll be looking forward to play by the time Tuesday gets here. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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