ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

May 29, 2021

Danny Hall

Truist Field

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Postgame Press Conference

NC State 8, Georgia Tech 1

DANNY HALL: Just a tough night, quite honestly, all the way around. Probably a game of inches. We were within an eyelash and probably up for interpretation whether we hit a two-run homer to cut the lead to one, and then just had a hard time maybe getting them out with guys in scoring position. I will give them credit; they did a great job, particularly Jarrett getting them off to a great start, got him down two strikes and kind of hung a breaking ball and he didn't miss it, and that got them off to a 3-0 start, and then Tresh has hit us all year, so you give them credit. Hit a big double early on and then hit a home run later and then a home run late. Hard to defend those. You tip your cap to them, and just wasn't meant to be, quite honestly.

Q. I imagine if someone would have said to you your pitchers are only going to allow five hits going into the ninth inning, you would have felt pretty good about your chances.

DANNY HALL: Yeah, probably. I mean, this is a really good hitting club. They're red hot. They're playing very well. Highfill is an outstanding pitcher. But our walks got us in trouble. It seemed like we would walk a guy and then they would do some damage to us, and that was kind of the common theme all night is that we would put some guys on by not making them hit their way on, and then they did some damage when we made just not good enough pitches to get them out.

Neither team had many hits kind of going into the game late. They got a few late on us, but you're right, we just got to eliminate walks, and that's easier said than done. But give them credit. They took advantage of everything we gave them.

Q. It seemed like you had a lot of balls hit on the nose. Some of them turned into double plays. Like you said, kind of one of those things, I guess, but what do you make of the way you were at least getting contact against Highfill?

DANNY HALL: Well, I thought we were very competitive with him. I haven't seen the replay on the home run, but I think that's quite a debate between maybe what the umpire saw in replay and what the TV showed. I mean, everybody that saw it on TV is telling me it was a home run. But the umpire saw something different, so they overturned it.

But you're right; we hit into I know two double plays in the first five innings, but both balls we hit into double plays on were hit pretty hard. Just one of those nights. Sometimes you've got to be lucky and the ball has got to bounce your way. Tonight just didn't bounce our way.

Q. What are the positives you take away from the game? It looks like Luke Bartnicki is back on track again. He had some pretty good innings there.

DANNY HALL: Yeah, really good tournament. For sure maybe close to five innings I don't think gave up any runs but threw the ball really well. That's really good for us moving forward is to kind of get back him on track. Maxwell threw the ball good on Thursday, and honestly Grissom threw the ball good, just when he made a mistake, they made him pay, and he probably just walked a few too many to kind of make it easier for them to score.

There was a lot of good things that happened for us this week. Now we've just got to get back to Atlanta, rest a little bit, find out where we're going on Monday and get ready to play in an NCAA regional.

Q. I would think that kind of seeds for this game were sewn particularly pitching-wise by having to go 12 and Brant not going probably as long as you would have wanted?

DANNY HALL: Well, maybe a little. But we had -- Marquis was rested and Bartnicki was kind of rested. I don't think that really had an impact on how we would have tried to pitch this game, and if we would have been fortunate enough to win, we would have pitched Archer tomorrow in the championship. I kind of think we had it lined up good, just didn't get that opportunity to play.

Q. I asked you the other day about seeding, and as you were saying you don't know, but does a No. 2 seed feel like something that should be coming your way on Monday?

DANNY HALL: I have no idea. Honestly, the -- that's all I'll say. There's plenty I'd want to say, but I'm not going to say it. I just think we have a great league, and so we'll just -- it's not in our hands, it's in the fate of the committee, and we'll see where they see us stacking up, and we'll go from there.

Q. You look at Marquis today and I guess what you saw, he strikes out the side in the first inning, then runs into trouble in the second. I guess that's just part of being a freshman and trying to learn the ropes of pitching in the ACC?

DANNY HALL: No question. You know, he's just got to be more consistent with where his pitches go. Like I said earlier, we had Jarrett with two strikes on him. Looked like we were going to get out of that jam, and he hung a breaking ball to him, and like a good hitter, Jarrett didn't miss it. He hit a double down the left field line, cleared the bases, so it went from looking like we were out of there 0-0 and now we're down 3-0.

He'll learn. He's got great aptitude. He's got a great attitude. He's a hard worker, and he's just going to do nothing but get better. It's a great experience for him tonight, face a really, really good NC State team that's red hot, and he'll learn from this.