2021 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 25, 2021

Tim Corbin

Vanderbilt Commodores

Postgame Press Conference

Vanderbilt - 3, NC State - 1

COACH CORBIN: Just a very tough ball game. I thought we pitched extremely well. We held it together in tough situations. Kumar getting us deep into the ball game, gave us everything he had and kept them down.

They were tough. They're gritty. They've got some magic with them. You could see that when they played Arkansas. But I thought we certainly pitched well enough -- Luke pitching at the end and just getting several 3-2 counts and just kind of holding serve and just getting through and keeping them off the scoreboard certainly with Murr and Butler and Tresh at the top. They can do a lot of damage, certainly. He was able to contain them thankfully.

Q. Will you just talk to us about before the game when you learned about the delay of the game and what information you got prior to knowing that it would actually keep, would actually happen today?

COACH CORBIN: We didn't know what was going to happen. The NCAA said that there was something up from a health standpoint. So they weren't specific about it. So not until deeper into the delay and then we knew. But it just became a situation we had to deal with like a rain delay.

It was North Carolina State's situation. It wasn't Vanderbilt's. We just had to be patient and kind of wait it out.

Q. The pitching as a whole, Kumar and the bullpen today, what were you most proud of of those guys approaching NC State today?

COACH CORBIN: Getting into damage situations with runners at second base and less than two outs and just keeping them from scoring, just the ability to land strikes in tough counts, tough hitters. Just it wasn't -- it certainly wasn't an easy game to play. You could feel it. It's 3-1, but it was a one-run game. It just was.

I thought McElvain did a good job when he had to. But Murph certainly, he threw over 50 pitches, and he just left everything on the field. Did what he had to do to keep his team healthy and runners off the scoreboard. Played a little defense behind him.

Q. I know that you're a creature of habit. You prepare the same way. You probably have the same routines before games. But when you get news like this, you've got pitchers playing first base and they used the same nine guys all year and you're seeing pitchers you didn't expect, what does that time you've got between the moment you know something's going to different and the first pitch, what's different about what you guys do in that situation?

COACH CORBIN: It's almost going back to playing sandlot. We didn't know who was going to pitch until five minutes before the game. So there's really nothing you can do about it. You knew he was right-handed. You knew that once we got the information, we started to give the information to the kids real quick.

But yeah, it is. It's just an adjustment. But that's North Carolina State. Their adjustments and their player situations, that doesn't have an effect on us. The nature of the game and mystery of the game and what was happening, I'm sure, the kids were wondering what's going on.

And holding them in the locker room. It's just an odd situation. It's one of many in the last 15 months, for God's sake. But there's nothing you can do about it. Once we got on the field, we just had to play baseball.

Q. Feel like you guys hit the ball well in the regular season. It's maybe been a bit more of a struggle recently. Is there a consistent pattern you've identified? And what do you guys need to maybe be able to break out here?

COACH CORBIN: We're here for a reason. Because we can play offense. We played it at the level that we've played it at times during the course of the year. But at the same time intertwined with maybe at-bats that weren't so good were at-bats that were really good. And there was inches in certain situations of that ball escaping an outfielder. They had to make good plays in the outfield. They made several good plays in the outfield, in which -- not just Brown's, but balls that they caught in the web and on the run, balls that were blasted. We had about five or six balls that were blasted in the gaps that they caught. And then other at-bats that weren't so opportunistic.

But it's a tough day. You've got a guy in pain that decelerates the ball at a level that we haven't seen lately. So it's a rhythm change. And he did good. He kept them in the game, too, as did Feeney. That was a gutty pitching outing by both of those guys.

Q. Wondering how you're feeling right now about your bullpen, of course Murphy having to throw a lot of pitches. And was Maldonado just hands off today with as much work he got the other day? Is he someone you look toward to potentially get a lot of work tomorrow?

COACH CORBIN: I think we'll reevaluate tomorrow once we determine who we're going to start first. And then after that we determine who can pitch. And Murphy's out but outside of that you have people that just haven't been in there yet.

But if you lose a game in this tournament, you know that's inevitable. You're going to end up throwing some guys that just haven't pitched. That's going to be the case tomorrow with Reilly and Berkwich and Owen and whomever. We can bring Fisher back and we'll see how Maldonado is before we make a decision on that. We have guys just like they do; they're probably in a similar situation like us right now. But we'll find arms that can throw.

Q. At the beginning of the game at least on TV the optics were stark when both teams took the lines stood there you had twice as many players that were out there. During that time and maybe even before, (indiscernible) immediately after. What did you think about possibly needing to save your guys, to keep them focused? Did you think you needed to do that, or did you think they'll do the right thing because this is what they've been trained for?

COACH CORBIN: I think from a focus standpoint, you know, it's an elimination game for us. It's not for them. So regardless of what the situation is, there's a lot of different emotions going into the game -- the mystery of when the game is going to start, the mystery of what it looks like over on the other side.

But, again, I just can't sit down with them just before and go over every little detail. Somewhere you have to gather yourself and say, we've just got to play good baseball. We've got to free ourselves up to play as well as we possibly can. And at the end of it, you hope for a positive outcome.

We got a positive outcome. And at this point I don't care what it looks like. It doesn't matter. We're still here. We're still playing and that's all that matters. And there is a toughness component that we've had that has allowed us to get through those moments.

And there's something to be said about grit. And we had to do that today too. Those guys felt it. Our guys knew that that game wasn't going to be easy. They just knew it. In all the years of coaching baseball, I've seen a lot of situations like that, where you feel like the other team, for whatever reason, has been minimized because of a certain situation.

That's a very dangerous situation for the opposition because the other team is playing with nothing to lose. They've got nothing to lose. And with some incredible arms that are plenty good enough to beat anyone.

And at that, five guys at the top that can wear you out -- and good players. And that's not minimizing the other guys, too. I'm pretty sure North Carolina State gives scholarships as well and all those kids are on scholarship. They can play.

Q. What was the situation with Isaiah today and Troy LaNeve in right? Were you just wanting to get another lefty in there?

COACH CORBIN: Yes.

Q. Is Jack available tomorrow? And how you work through that decision with the rest and all that sort of stuff?

COACH CORBIN: Yeah, we'll just wait until tomorrow. When they wake up we start moving around a little bit. We'll find out what we have and whether Jack is or anyone else for that matter. We'll determine that once they start moving around, once they start throwing, once they start moving their arm. .