2021 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 19, 2021

Chase Silseth

Arizona Wildcats

Postgame Press Conference

Vanderbilt - 7, Arizona - 6 (12 innings)

Q. I know it probably doesn't feel good when you lose the game, but you pitched extremely well tonight. How do you feel about your performance? What was working for you out there?

CHASE SILSETH: I thought the fastball command was really working for me really well, being able to locate that pretty low, lower part of the strike zone to get a lot of ground balls as you saw today.

And I felt really good about my performance. I was just battling out there, competing, to give my team a chance to win. And I felt like I did that. So I did my job. And always have trust going to the bullpen with my guys. And I'm backing them full after that.

So I thought I gave my team a chance to win and I did my job.

Q. The pitch to Gonzalez that he was able to put out, was that something that just missed the spot?

CHASE SILSETH: No, it was a strike.

Q. The one that he put out.

CHASE SILSETH: Oh, the one that he put out. Shoot, sorry.

Q. I know what you're talking about.

CHASE SILSETH: The one I put out, that was the one pitch I would take away from the whole game. I thought that's the one bad pitch I made. Left it up in the zone for him to hit out of the ballpark. So on that pitch I just take that one away. Other than that, we were sitting pretty solid.

Q. You knew that you were going to be going up against Kumar Rocker or maybe Jack Leiter, and either way one of the most famous pitchers in college baseball. How did you approach that matchup? Were you fired up to duel against one of those guys?

CHASE SILSETH: Oh, for sure. For sure. You see all the talk and hype on them and it's awesome what they're doing. A lot of respect to those guys.

So, yeah, it was awesome. I was just trying to enjoy the moment. I thought I was going to be a little more amped up. But I kept my cool and I just enjoyed the moment. It was fun going up against Rocker himself, what he's done this year is awesome to compete against him and Vanderbilt was, you know, a dream come true. And hats off to those guys. But it was really fun, really fun.

Q. Were you nervous out there?

CHASE SILSETH: Oh, not at all. Coming in waking up I thought I was going to be. But it was just another game. With all these fans and everybody, they're just coming to watch us play our best brand of baseball. That's what I was thinking. So what's there to be nervous about; we're just playing a game.