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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 25, 2019Mike GambinoJoe SuozziJack CunninghamDurham, North Carolina North Carolina - 13, Boston College - 5 MIKE GAMBINO: Before we talk about the game, I just want to thank the ACC. They put on such a great event here. Chris Pierce and the entire baseball committee, everybody that's working here, it's just an awesome event, from top to bottom. Our boys had a blast all week. I want to thank the grounds crew at both places. Both of these fields are in unbelievable shape and they get a lot of play all week, and these guys, men and women, work extremely hard. Thank you to the Bulls for hosting this whole tournament and letting us take over their home for a week to be able to allow this event to happen. I think for me the biggest takeaway from this and watching that ballgame and watching these boys fight this week and the last five weeks is I think we're a tournament team, and I hope the committee is listening and watching and seeing what these guys have done. You get to 31 wins, and to do what these guys have done, I think these boys deserve a chance to play for a National Championship. I believe they've earned it, I believe they're worthy, and I think when we're looking at 64 teams in the country, I think we've got to be one of them. Q. You guys fell into that hole early in the game. In kind of typical BC fashion you fight back there in the sixth inning. At that point I imagine you guys felt pretty good about yourselves. What do you think of the way this game played out, what do you think that says about the character of this club? JACK CUNNINGHAM: I think all year we've been great, responding to the other team scoring runs, and especially the past two weeks we felt like we're one of the best teams in the country, and when we rally together, we feel like we can overcome any deficit. JOE SUOZZI: Yeah, kind of what Jack said, for the past five weeks, we've really just been facing a lot of adversity and we always persevere it seems like. It's not like one guy this whole year has really stuck out. There's guys that play better than others, but we've just had team wins after team wins, and it's a whole group effort every game, especially the past five weeks. Q. Joe, the overturned call on the play at the plate in the fourth, you were kind of in the middle of that play. You were on base at the time. What effect did it have on you guys at that moment, loss of momentum or anything like that? JOE SUOZZI: I think you obviously wished they called him safe, but like I just said, all year we've been facing adversity, and we didn't let it affect us that much. It stinks, but we didn't let it bother us that much. Q. Jack, talk about that home run in the fourth inning, talk about that whole sequence. JACK CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, so the previous at-bat, I was a little -- way out in front facing a lefty. I believe that was Sandy, Will Sandy, and a new lefty came in, and I was just trying to honestly hit the ball the other way and got in a hitter's count and he hung a changeup and squared it up. Q. Coach, what are some things that you guys can work on? MIKE GAMBINO: Well, I think really for us, we always -- who we want to be in this program is we want to be a group of guys that play extremely hard. We want to play really good fundamental baseball. I thought we did that today. We know that when we pitch and play defense, play good fundamental baseball, we've got a chance to -- we become a tough team to beat. So what we're going to work on going forward is what we always work on, just playing really good baseball, playing real hard, and having fun every time at the ballpark. One of the things I love most about these boys is, yes, how hard they play but just how much fun they have playing this game, and it just -- it's contagious. It's infectious, and it's why we all love coming to the ballpark every day. Q. Mike, I wanted to ask you about the video review. Not so much that call and what your opinion of it was but more just in general, do you like the way video review is applied? Do you think there should be some changes made in how it's applied? MIKE GAMBINO: Yeah, I mean, I think video review has been a great addition to our conference and to college baseball. I think we as a conference do a great job with it. I think it's tough and there's so many bang-bang calls, and you have to have something that you see to really overturn a call, and with all the 50/50 calls that come up in a baseball game, it's crazy how perfectly they got those base paths, didn't they, right at 90 feet? It's unbelievable. So yeah, I love it. I love what we've done with it, and I think it's executed really well a lot of the time. Like anything else, whether it's with the naked eye or with the review, sometimes they go your way and sometimes they don't. Q. Just from a program building perspective, regardless of what happens on Monday, you've got a lot of young talent coming back. You came out here, you played really well against some really good teams. How much do you think that experience will benefit your program the next couple years? MIKE GAMBINO: Well, we've talked a lot, there's been a lot of talk about the young players on this team, and what's coming in this program. But you also can look at this young group -- we were sort of a non-factor in the college baseball landscape, as this thing started to build, and this group that we're seeing -- the seniors committed to just a vision. We told them what we thought we could be. We told them -- they came to BC without a baseball field. We told them what we thought we could do in this program. We told them we thought we could compete on the national stage. We told them that they would have a chance to go to Omaha, and their freshman year we're one hanging changeup away from going to Omaha. And that 2016 group, this group here is now built off of that because in the recruiting landscape it takes a couple years. You know, and now you put a new facility and phase 2 of that facility, they're breaking ground I think Monday or Tuesday, with this group here, it's -- it's just been a really fun couple of years, and it's because of what -- and again, the success this freshman class has had is because of the lessons these seniors have learned and what they've done for this program. We recruit tough, competitive, predominantly Northeast but from around the country, tough, competitive, high academic kids, tremendous character, tremendous work ethic, and it's a developmental program so you've got guys like Danny Metzdorf and Jake Alu and Gian, who early on they aren't quite ready day one, but in a world in a lot of college baseball, if you're not ready day one, you ended up at a junior college. These guys just work and get better and get better and turn into some of the best players in our conference. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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