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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 26, 2018Joe JordanoFrank MaldonadoDurham, North Carolina Louisville - 5, Pitt - 2 JOE JORDANO: I think the focus of our team was certainly right where it needed to be. They played hard. We, again, had some opportunities. I thought the -- one of the signs of a good team is you take advantage of offensive opportunities, and I think we had a couple of lead-off walks that eventually touched the base for Louisville. The two-run homer in that ballgame was a two-out hit. And that's the difference. And that's the margin of error in this league that is so apparent. But very proud of not only our team but our effort. They did a great job. There's a lot of disappointed guys, because quite frankly, we didn't come down here to show well, we came down here to win. But in a bigger context, I think that we'll look back on this and say we had a pretty good week. Q. First of all, putting this run into perspective, you talked about it the other day, people probably weren't giving you guys much of a chance here, and you come and you knock off the top seed and you almost pulled off a pretty big miracle run almost. How do you kind of put it all into context? FRANK MALDONADO: I think it just ties into one of our core principles of not listening to the noise, the external stuff that goes on. You know, we're going to face a lot of adversity. People can say what they want, but at the end of the day, we've established a culture among our team that we understand, the nine of us and the pitchers that are playing, we're the ones that go out on the field and compete. Regardless of what people are going to say, even the coaches have limited interference with the outcome of the ballgame. I think we have a strong understanding of that. We didn't let that affect us, and we left it all out there. Q. And what was the message in the postgame when you guys met together? What was discussed? FRANK MALDONADO: I mean, you know, pretty much just what Coach Jordano said. Right now it stings. Every single one of us had a strong belief that we were going to come down here and win this thing. Some people might say that's crazy, but like they say, crazier things have happened, with everything. We had a strong belief in that, and it's baseball, man. Hats off to Louisville. They played a great game today, and we just came up a little bit short, but in a single-elimination environment, that's the nature of it. I think like Coach Jordano says, once the pain of this loss kind of eases, we'll begin to appreciate the big series wins we had this year for the first time in program history, the first time here, not only coming here for the first time but winning our pool with the top seed. I mean, that is something to be very proud of, and I'm very proud of my guys and our team for doing that. Q. Frank, just curious what you saw from Bennett today. FRANK MALDONADO: Bennett is not the kind of guy that's going to overpower you, but today he commanded multiple pitches for strikes early, and he was able to mix. We were looking at trying to look at tendencies, and hats off to him being able to mix pitches to the point where it was tough to find a tendency. It was tough to try to figure out how we were going to go after him. But sometimes you've just got to tip your cap. He got me on a back-foot slider one at-bat, and sometimes when that pitch is there, you kind of just nod and walk back to the plate because you've got to understand it, just like when you get them, they'll hopefully tip their cap to you. But again, hats off to Bennett. He did an unbelievable job, and then their guy that came in after that also pounded the zone and was able to get ahead of guys. Q. Coach, you changed leagues and you've got to change recruiting and there's so many things that happened, you're going to new places. Do you feel like this is a big momentum for you guys, being in the ACC and having such a great showing here? JOE JORDANO: Yeah, I think the -- just on those lines, just like to thank the Durham Bulls, this whole event and the ACC conference office. This has been an incredible experience. We certainly plan on being back. And I really believe that the opportunity to compete in the tournament and have an understanding, as I told my team in the postgame remarks, is now that you have a taste of it, that'll give you a better understanding of when we talk about every pitch, every game counts. You don't know when the moment is going to happen when your season can change. So I think when -- and we have a relatively young team, and for them to have an understanding of what it takes to compete at this level, the speed of the game, the intensity of the game, and how each of those moments can be the difference, and they have to be prepared for it, I can't teach that. They have to live it. They have to experience it. And they did that. So just by being here and competing, it proves that, number one, they can do it, and number two, take that back with you and make sure that that is a clear message to all the new players coming into the program. Q. Coach, Louisville obviously is playing pretty good baseball right now. What was your plan of attack against them today, and especially Mann, I guess, kind of hurt you, but what did you see and how good do you think those guys are? JOE JORDANO: They're very good. You know, we go back to our competing days in the Big East, so I have a great deal of respect for Coach McDonnell, and obviously Roger has been with him a long time and Brian Mundorf, their ops guy, is a good friend. I have a great deal of respect for how they do things. You know, they're a very aggressive team on the base paths. They execute their game plan. Incredible depth on the mound. Bennett, I thought, made every critical pitch. You know, he walked three guys, but it seemed like when he needed to make a pitch, he made it. And that's a characteristic, I think, of Louisville. They really seem to always make that pitch. Those are difference makers, you know, in the course of a ballgame. But they play clean. They play hard. They have a specific game plan. Every time you play them, you know you're in for a really tough ballgame, and they're not going to make many mistakes. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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