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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 25, 2018Mike FoxGianluca DalatriDurham, North Carolina North Carolina - 9, Georgia Tech - 0 MIKE FOX: It was a good win for us certainly. I thought a good clean win. The kids were ready right out of the gate, and I was proud of that more than anything else. I think it kind of defines our team a little bit this year, just really enjoy competing, and even though technically we didn't have, as far as the tournament was concerned, anything to play for, our kids really came out ready and we got a lead right out of the gate, and any time we got Gianluca on the mound with a lead, early, middle or late, we feel pretty good about it. Good way for us to finish up over here. Q. (No microphone.) LUCA DALATRI: I mean, like I said, I just try to go out there and just be myself. I'm just lucky I ended up pitching well, I guess. I mean, I don't really have anything to say about that. Q. How close are you to being back to where you want to be, having command and being able to kind of extend, because it looked like you kind of were running out of gas there in the fifth. LUCA DALATRI: Yeah, I mean, the hardest part about coming back especially is dealing with trying to get your stamina back, I guess. So I mean, right now it's not so much me getting tired. I think when I start to get a little fatigued, whether it's my arm or my legs, I start to rush down the mound a little bit. That's what I kind of ran into in the fifth inning. You know, I just tried to battle through that and be in the stretch, I guess. Maybe I was falling down the mound a little more than I usually do. But to answer your question, I guess I feel pretty close. I don't think Coach would send me out there if he thought anything otherwise. I'm just lucky I'm out there really. That's the only thing I'm looking at. Like I've got a new perspective on just baseball in general. It got taken away from me for so long. I'm just happy I'm out there and just giving it a chance to win. Q. More about the progression, I think against Virginia Tech you threw four innings and 40-some pitches, today five innings and 73 pitches. Project to next week in the NCAA tournament; how far do you think -- if you continue to recover as you have, how far do you feel confident that you can go? LUCA DALATRI: I mean, I feel confident that I can throw as long as Coach needs me to throw. Whether or how long I go, that's how I feel that day, and if I let up five runs in the first inning, I think my outing won't go too long. I'm just going out there, like treat every pitch like it means something, and it does, and just execute every pitch and execute every batter, whether it's the first batter, the four batter or the nine batter. I think that's the biggest thing with just not giving any pitches away, not settling down because you're up 9-0, and I guess if you want to say step on their throat and just kind of keep the momentum to us and not give it back to them. As for next week, only God knows what's going to happen, so I'm just going to try to prepare myself as best I can and do what I have been doing, and we'll see how it goes. Q. Luca, last Saturday you said that after you threw your four, you were, quote-unquote, your words, not mine, pissed that they came out and got you. Were you a little happier to get the call to get out this time? LUCA DALATRI: Yeah, I mean, I wasn't pissed at the coaches or anything like that. I think as that interview went on, I actually praised him a little bit. I'm pretty sure I said that I'm pretty lucky to have coaches that care about me enough to pull me when I'm throwing like that. To them my arm means a lot more than five or six innings. I'm lucky to have that. You know, it was definitely nice to have a little longer of a leash, and hopefully next weekend I'll have the same thing. It all goes to how well I'm throwing, so I mean, that goes for everybody. If I'm throwing well, then I'm going to keep going out there. If I start to struggle, then it's their call. That's basically what it leads down to. Q. Mike, as a coach, to be able to add an element of this ability at this time of year, how big of an advantage is that for you? How good is that for you? MIKE FOX: I mean, yeah, it's huge. I think it's huge for our team, huge for his teammates because they have such confidence in Gianluca, and obviously you have a history -- he has a history of how he can pitch last year. I think it's a huge morale boost to really everybody. But I think his teammates more than anything else because we all feel good when Gianluca is on the mound because he's pretty good. Q. Coach Fox, you mentioned that today really not much to play for, but yet your team came out like gangbusters both at the plate and on the mound, obviously. What are your impressions of the team today and the way they came out and battled without much on the line? MIKE FOX: Yeah, I'm very -- I'm not surprised, and I challenged them a little bit, obviously, but they should probably be upset with me that I actually did that, because again, I think that's one of our team's biggest attributes is they really enjoy competing, and they were upset that we weren't playing for more today. I like that about this team more than anything else. That's probably what I'm most proud of today, obviously, besides the way we played is how we approached the game and how we came over here ready. Q. I've been asking all the coaches about the format. A lot of positives, some unusual things. One thing that was out of your control was when the 12 beat the 8, your game against Pitt became an elimination game right out of the gate. None of the other top-4 seeds had that. Seeing how loose everybody looked today, take us back to Tuesday. What was it like to play in that game, especially after the catch against the wall. As the game went on, what was it like to play in that game? MIKE FOX: You know, I told our kids afterwards, I think that game could possibly help us down the road because at some point in your season, if you're fortunate enough to go on, you're going to play in a game that if you lose it's going to end your season. You're inevitably going to get to that game, and so you have to be prepared for that. You can get a little bit prepared on what happened Wednesday, like okay, we're going to be eliminated from the tournament, so you've got to go back and look and see how you felt, how you approached it, how calm you were, relaxed you were, because we could very well be in that same position this coming weekend except the stakes are going to be a little bit higher. So that was kind of my take on it, just trying to put a positive spin on an important game that we lost that was close, and it didn't go our way. Q. Do you like the format? MIKE FOX: You know, I did vote for the format. You've heard all the other coaches probably say there are pros and cons to it. I don't know how you have 12 teams in five days and one site and not play four a day and not play at 10:00 at night. We've been over here before at 2:00 a.m. We played a game until 1:00 and then turned around and played the championship game at 12:00. It is what it is. We debated it. We'll probably debate it again this September when we talk about it again. I have no qualms with it. If you know you're going to play the following weekend, knowing that you're not going to play more than four games is a good feeling in terms of just your pitching, and it's all about pitching at this point in time and trying to line that up for the NCAA tournament. But that's not every team. That's just the way it is. Q. You have a full week off now before you play again; how important was it to get a win and get a performance like this to kind of get a good feeling and a little bit of a -- wash away that Pittsburgh -- MIKE FOX: You know, very. Kids have a short memory, however, so it was probably not as big a deal as maybe I would probably make it to be. But anytime you can win and your team and your kids feel confident and it's more about some of our guys stepping up there and getting some base hits and feeling good about that, it's probably just what we needed to get those four pitchers on the mound today and get them some rest for the weekend and then get back to work on Monday. Q. Do you believe that you all have done enough to earn a top-8 seed, and if so, why? MIKE FOX: You know, I hope so, but I'm probably the worst coach out there to try to advocate for his team. It's not in my hands. I'm just glad we're playing next weekend. We've had seasons where we've been at this time of year and our season is over and we're not, so we don't take it for granted. I think obviously -- I think we should be hosting. I'll let that committee dissect it all and figure that out, and if we are, that'll be great. If not, we're not going to cry about it, we're just going to go play. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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