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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: LUBBOCK REGIONALJune 5, 2017Orlando GarciaHunter HargroveTim TadlockLubbock, Texas Sam Houston State - 4, Texas Tech - 3 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement, and then questions for the student-athletes. COACH TADLOCK: What a college baseball game, first of all. One-run game, you kind of knew when we went to -- call it what you want, rubber match, Game 7, you know if it's close, it could go either way. Sam Houston State earned the right to win that game. They played great defense. Obviously everybody they pitched, I think, pitched yesterday. Phenomenal that you can do that. In the big scheme of things for us, we were playing today to win the whole thing, not just to win today. We just, man, we're in a great spot having Davis Martin, based on him pitching on Friday and the rain delay and all those things. I thought Davis was outstanding. I really thought he got in rhythm in the third and fourth. I really thought he was really good. Looked like his old self. Matt Deggs does a great job over there. I thought the kids played really hard. It reminded me quite a bit of last week in the Big 12 tournament. Just kids going, toeing the line to try to survive. Their kids going out and pitching like that on zero rest, really, is really phenomenal. They executed pitches, and a lot of times you can do that. I know those will be moments those kids will never forget in their life. Obviously, probably the biggest win in their program's history, I would say. You know, as far as our guys, we love every one of them. We appreciate every one of them. I think the effort was there. Execution, obviously was not there. The and that's really what the game of baseball comes down to. I mean, it's kind of to me a lot of -- you can say we had a great year, but I tell you right now, we're going to have to execute better, whether that's pitching, playing defense or offensively. But I don't want to take anything away from Sam Houston. Again, the kids they pitched, I thought early third pace man took a run off the board. I thought the second baseman took a single away, almost turned a double-play on it, and that's off the top of my head. You know, Rojas, a kid that started out in Stillwater, he's been a great player since he's been there. Again, it's unfortunate that when you go to Game 7 or rubber match, that's kind of the way, but sometimes the ball doesn't bounce your way or maybe you don't execute as well as you'd like to. Q. Hunter, Orlando, two one-run losses, but you all finished 5 of 30 with runners in scoring position the last two days. What wasn't clicking when you had guys in scoring position this weekend? ORLANDO GARCIA: I mean, it's a game of baseball, you know? We've played it all our lives, and I think at this point it kind of caught up to us. But, I mean, like I said, it's a game of baseball, and all you can do is keep playing. Q. Hunter, can you talk about your defense the last two days? I think you had two errors both games and in one run games, that seems pretty costly? HUNTER HARGROVE: I mean, we have a really good defense. We've had a really good defense all year. It's just one of those things that just, like Orlando said, it's baseball. It just didn't go our way the past two days. Obviously that will haunt us right now. Just got to keep your heads up. Sam Houston played good baseball, and we just didn't execute when we needed to. Q. Hunter, you got a lot done in your career here at Tech. This being the last time you'll play here, could you reflect on the last couple years and how much success you got to have while you're here? HUNTER HARGROVE: It's been a blessing. I thank Coach Tadlock and the staff for allowing me to play baseball at the highest level, and especially being able to compete and go to Omaha. You know, being a senior and just seeing all these young guys, and I have no doubt in my mind that Coach Tadlock will get these guys back to Omaha and the young pups, they're ready to go already. It's been a blessing. Q. I know you guys had goals to get to the College World Series, and I know it's just been a couple minutes to be able to kind of take it all in. But looking at the season as a whole, just what you kind of look at an overview of how it wrapped up? ORLANDO GARCIA: To be honest, I think we underachieved, you know? We wanted to do big things. We won a Big 12 Championship. That was one of our many goals. But at the end of the day, we wanted to do something pretty big for the city, for the school, for Kirby who does a lot for us. I mean, we just didn't execute. I think as a shortstop you've got to be able to hold it down. Unfortunately, I didn't. I take responsibility for it. We had chances to bounce back, we didn't. That's part of the game, and we'll keep moving. Q. Orlando or Hunter, Coach Tadlock mentioned their pitching, how they threw the same guys they threw yesterday for the most part. Does it make it more difficult to face five or six different pitchers in one game? HUNTER HARGROVE: I mean, obviously facing a new arm almost every single at-bat, I mean, yes, that's pretty difficult. But then again, we're college hitters for a reason. They threw a lot this past weekend, so we should have been able to get into good counts and make good swings on pitches. We hit some balls hard, just went right to people, and unfortunately, the ball just didn't roll our way. That's just part of the game. Q. Coach, I know Josh Young, that play sliding into third obviously was a really tough one for you guys as far as that tying run down there. I mean, what was the explanation on the call? I know it looked like maybe the arm was lifted or he slid past the bag. What did you hear from the umpire? COACH TADLOCK: Well, the argument was that he pushed him off the bag. You guys would know better. We see that quite a bit as far as oversliding on turf. You see it everywhere we go. You know, as far as -- we still had two at-bats left in the game, a one-run game. It didn't affect the outcome. We still had six outs to go. Really probably wouldn't even mention it. I know it was a big play at the time. At the same time, we did hold the door and still had six outs. So I thought the guys you're talking about did a great job. They were all outstanding throughout the weekend. You'll never find us -- I mean, we'll never blame it on. We just don't go there. We had pitches to hit, plays to make, execution, and that's really what it's about. In baseball you have opportunity to score and do those things. So I don't know that it's even something we should talk about at this point. Q. Coach, with the runners in scoring position and Orlando has three errors after having four errors in his first 60 games, what wasn't clicking with this team? It just seemed uncharacteristic of what we saw the first 65 games this season? COACH TADLOCK: Well, first of all, you had a northeast wind today. If you can go back the first time Cooper got Tanner out, you kind of had Hargrove behind him to protect him. I think he lines out to the warning track. There are a lot of days in Lubbock, Texas, that ball's out of the ballpark. And that's just really things you can't control. He did everything he could. Squared up, and the ball was caught. But most days, do you guys agree with me, the ball usually goes out of the ballpark. I really thought their guys did a good job. They didn't give in. They made some really good plays, too. Man, you go through stretches like that. Good offenses find ways to score when you don't hit. I mean, you have to be able to do that, and we've been able to do that. Today just wasn't our day from that standpoint. Q. Coach, you had Ryan coming up. He was hitless. You put the hit-and-run on. How big was that to get that spot up and put runners on the corners for you all late in the game there? Were you trying to get him going? What was the thought process behind it? COACH TADLOCK: We truly felt like it was a good spot to kind of get him going. Yeah, it was a breaking ball, still 2-0. You know a guy's trying to throw a strike, and we didn't bunt. You've got one out and you've got to get him around there. Fortunate it worked out at that time. You do what the game tells you, and that's what the game is telling you to do at that point. The game was telling you to safety after that: Wouldn't have it any other way. Brian's a great bunter and kind of going through the inning now, if you can't tell. We'd like to be able to execute and put the go-ahead run on second base. I don't know if you guys knew this, but they brought a new first baseman in halfway through the game. Really when they brought him in, it was like, okay, we're going to see if he can handle this. It would have been nice to see if he could have, because one play he had over there there was a little unsuredness, if that's a word. Q. I think you guys played Sam Houston three times last year and beat them all three times. Is there anything you can point to specifically that they seem to have improved upon to win the regional? COACH TADLOCK: It would be interesting to me just in this situation, the psychology of it. Where guy's minds -- they're definitely the underdog based on what everybody thinks and the psychology of them having a rally mode, and also being in the loser's bracket from Saturday on and kind of getting that rally mode going. Last night was a big game. The runs they scored in the 8th were big runs. Anytime you get in a situation that we were in yesterday, you want to try to get it done that day. So unfortunate we didn't get that. As far as what you said, it's a one-run baseball game. Again, you could go back and look at elements. You could look at all kinds of things and probably figure out they probably had some of the same stuff though, right? They probably had hard-hit balls. Today, they earned the right to win a one-run baseball game. They played good. Played good defense. Played above average defense. So they earned the right to win today. Q. Sam Houston early in the game you guys had a lot of hardly hit balls that, as you alluded to, they were playing good defense and taking away some runs. Then after you got in the lead, they were able to take it back, get a bloop, get an error, and it seemed like you guys were able offensively to sustain that and not let that faze you too much. How do you think the guys handled those circumstances? COACH TADLOCK: The guys have done a pretty good job for the most part throughout the year to keep playing. You've got to play nine innings. From early on you felt like we were going to be able to get to them. Really did. I felt like it was going to be close. But, early on, when they went to Mills and Cooper early, you're like, okay, we're going to be able to string some hits together and get some runs. We had it one time where we had the three-run inning and just couldn't get it done after that. So their guys executed pitches, did a good job, played good defense. And they did a good job too. The guy was throwing whatever he was throwing, the left-hander, and they're playing dead pool on every guy. You think about it, it's really just good baseball to do all that. Thought they did a good job with that. Q. Coach, now that the season's over after a Big 12 Championship and hosting a regionals, how would you describe this season as a successor as a failure? COACH TADLOCK: Well, we wanted to play in Omaha and we wanted to play for the whole thing. So in answer to that question, there is nobody in that locker room that was happy. So to answer your question, I think we had the guys on the field now, again, usually to win a regional you've got to put together some good starts. That's where we thought we were in really good shape with Davis going today, even though you had some other options as far as that goes. To answer the question, we're not happy. It might sound weird. Win 45 games and not be happy and say it's not a success, but I would say that's where we are right now. Q. Can you reflect on the careers of Hunter and Ryan and Colton and Anthony and what they've meant to this program as you've built it up the past couple years? COACH TADLOCK: Yeah, I really haven't let my mind go there yet. Those guys have been really good. Really good academically, really good in the classroom, really good off the field representing our program. Probably not going to get -- I mean, those four guys have competed. They've led. You start talking about Anthony Lyons, and I think he got to go to Omaha twice. Just a great teammate. I'm sure all those guys, Hargrove is going to play a little bit, I'm sure, after this year. Colton did a great job this year, just in the dugout. It's not very often you see a guy that doesn't play that's a great teammate. Just a really good job with all that stuff. Who am I forgetting there? Ryan Long obviously is a guy that went to Omaha twice also. You know, in transition to the outfield this year and became a really good outfielder. He's a baseball player, can go on the infield and play. Those guys have been really good for our program. I mean, every program needs those guys to stay around for four years. We had that last year. We really benefited from the guys that stuck around their senior year last year and started talking about all the guys that stayed. So I don't think you go win 45 games without those guys. Even though maybe they weren't everyday guys. I mean, Colton, I think one of the biggest weekends of the year was the weekend Colton caught. We were down to one catcher, literally. That was a big turning point from our standpoint because we were short that weekend. Had a big part in us being a national seed, us being able to host a regional so we love those guys. It's not the end. We'll be here for those guys, and they'll be there for us for a long time. As soon as we're still kicking. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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