COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: LEXINGTON REGIONAL

June 1, 2024

Dan Hartleb

Brody Harding

Jacob Schroeder

Illinois Fighting Illini

Postgame Press Conference

Kentucky 6, Illinois 1.

DAN HARTLEB: I thought we did a good job competing today. Didn't come up with some clutch hits with runners in scoring position. Part of that was I thought Kentucky's pitchers threw a lot of quality pitches and threw very well, so made it very difficult for us.

Q. Brody or Jacob, what was their guy on the mound doing to control you guys? Seemed like you got ahead early on counts a lot.

JACOB SCHROEDER: Yeah, he was just commanding all three of his pitches and throwing them all for a strike, getting ahead, and putting them in good spots a lot. Wasn't a lot of really good pitches to hit all day, so I think he did a good job of doing that.

Q. Talk to me about the weather today; was it something that played a factor at all for you guys, or was it pretty much something that you guys didn't even notice until it seemed like everybody noticed it pour right at the end?

BRODY HARDING: We both had to play in it. I don't think the weather was much of a factor. They were doing the same thing. Yeah, the ball was a little wet, but they had to go out there and it was the same for both of us, so I don't think it had too much of an effect on too much.

Q. You guys offensively feel like something is going to break through? Do you feel like something is going to be able to break through?

JACOB SCHROEDER: We're always confident and prepared to go out there and have good at-bats, hit balls hard. I'm confident tomorrow we're going to play a great game and score a lot of runs.

Q. Jacob, what did you see from Payton behind the plate today in terms of executing the game plan?

JACOB SCHROEDER: Payton threw great for us today. It's a really difficult spot to throw in, going against the No. 2 team in the nation, a regional game. It's a big spot, and he was able to show up today. Was able to land his changeup and his slider, keeping guys off balance, commanded his fastball well.

He really did a good job for us today. He showed up.

Q. Jacob, what did you see out of the bullpen guys, especially Julius comes in and gets that big out to get you out of a jam, and Plumley seemed like he was really (indiscernible) today.

JACOB SCHROEDER: Yeah, both of them had really good stuff, so when they're in the zone like they were today, they're super effective. So biggest thing is just getting them in the zone, keeping them locked in. They both did a great job today of keeping guys off balance and getting the swings we wanted.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about Ryan Waldschmidt out of that lead-off spot for them, what a challenge it poses when he's starting off innings?

DAN HARTLEB: Yeah, he's got a lot of plate awareness. He doesn't swing at pitches out of the zone. You put him on base and all of a sudden you've got a stealing threat there which puts pressure on your pitcher, a guy that makes it very, very difficult I think from a mentality standpoint with pitchers. Really good player.

Q. What did you see from Trey Pooser today that from your perspective you think kind of gave your hitters fits today?

DAN HARTLEB: Well, he was in the count a lot. Kind of a two-way street. The thing that I was disappointed in, when we finally got either a walk or a couple hits, had some base runners, I didn't think we had very composed at-bats.

There's two things there. He throws some quality pitches, made some things look like strikes that did end up out of the zone. He just competed very, very well, and when he got in a jam he found a way to get out each and every time. It was impressive.

Q. What were your thoughts on Hutchings' performance?

DAN HARTLEB: Payton? I thought Payton did a really good job. He's not a guy that has great velocity. He's a guy that really has to pitch. He had the one inning where he gave up the two runs where he hit some guys, but the reason that we stick him out there on a regular basis is because you know what you're going to get from a competitive standpoint, and he put that behind us and got us deep in the game.

That's important for a couple runs. One, to give us an opportunity to win. He kept us in the game. The other is where we're at now, not having to burn up the bullpen in order to get back through it and have a chance to win and move on, and now we have three games.

I thought he did a good job, competed well, handled the crowd, handled all the different things that can have an effect on young people and teams. I thought our guys did a good job.

Q. Do you have a plan as to who's going tomorrow at noon?

DAN HARTLEB: Not yet. We'll talk about it. We'll, I think, have a good starting situation tomorrow, and then again, we tried to piece together the end of the game and still put us in a position to win today without really using arms up.

Q. When the start of the game is moved up like that, does it have any effect, or at this point in the season you've been through weather and those types of things before?

DAN HARTLEB: To me, it's a blessing. I always say hurry up and wait. You have a 7:00 game, you sit around the hotel. I don't think it has an effect.

Now, if you have to move it up to 9:00 in the evening I think that has an effect, but to move it up from 6:00, 7:00, to 4:00, no, no effect. Guys are ready to play. They wanted to get out there.

I thought we were very focused and didn't think it had any effect at all. Look at the weather right now; it was a good move.

Q. You had four of the six hits in the bottom of your lineup. You were trying to turn it over a little bit.

DAN HARTLEB: Yeah, I think we've got guys trying to do too much, honestly. This team has really done a good job offensively all year, and I think we have some guys just trying too hard. That doesn't help you at times.

Something that we'll talk about tonight. Guys coming out loose.

The one thing I can say about these guys, each and every day they come out loose. You watch what they're doing in batting practice and watch what they're doing around the hotel and meals. They're laughing, having fun together, and they are loose.

But sometimes you try a little bit too hard, and you don't want to take that away from them because they care. At the same time, you can't try to overdo it. We just need to take a step back and be ready to roll in the morning.

Q. Kentucky has a very aggressive style of play. They intentionally put a lot of pressure on you. What additional challenges does that put on you as a coach to kind of relay that to your players?

DAN HARTLEB: Well, the thing that I try to do throughout the year is play a number of different styles. We go places early where you have guys that have power, some teams that rely on pitching, some teams that really put pressure on you from a baserunning standpoint, and then you look at our conference, there's a wide range of styles.

The running game is something that you have to control with Kentucky. They'll give you quality at-bats find a way to get base runners on, whether it's getting hit by a pitch or walking and then they try to hurt you with the running game. I think we were prepared for that.

We had the one situation where they took second base and didn't defend that the way we normally do. But all in all I thought we defended it well, but it is something that you have to defend. When you have running teams, you have to have composure as a pitcher because a lot of times you get in a hurry and start elevating pitches and can get hurt.

I didn't think that really affected us today, but it's something that you have to prepare for when you play Kentucky.