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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 22, 2011Curt CasaliTim CorbinConnor HarrellTaylor HillOMAHA, NEBRASKA Vanderbilt – 5 THE MODERATOR: Coach, give us an overview, please. COACH CORBIN: The story was Taylor Hill from a pitching standpoint. Thought he came out and pitched very well. He set the tone early, throwing a lot of strikes, keeping them off base. It was a contrast really to the first game where there were a lot of base runners for North Carolina. He did a good job of neutralizing their offense, and got us deep into the ballgame where we could put Corey into the game and give him the ball. Connor's home run was big and followed up by Curtis. We did enough offensively to get by. We played tight defense in the outfield, and I that you go those kids made some nice catches out there. So we'll take it and move on. Q. Taylor, Jacobs you kind of said you elevated your play in that strikeout in the fifth. Can you take us back, please? TAYLOR HILL: I obviously wanted to get ahead. And Curt was moving them in, and out, and Curt called the away fastball. I was just going to give it everything I had. And if he hit it, he hit it. But thank goodness, he didn't. But that's just pretty much it. We just moved them in and out and went away, and fortunate enough to have them swing through it. Q. Taylor, if you could just talk about coming back after the two weeks off whether your arm felt fresh? And secondly on that 0-2 pitch to Jacob, are you trying to outguess him there? Are you trying to outthink him since obviously he knows you from summer ball? TAYLOR HILL: As far as having two weeks off I was thrilled about it as a pitcher any time you can have two days off is great. But I was able to throw a few pens and last week I was able to throw a couple of innings in the scrimmage before we left for here. But, you know, just keeping it down and working the corners and just working on your movement was about all you can do. You can't throw in scrimmages every day. But at this point forward it's all mental. You've got to go out there and give it your all and whatever happens, happens. After that I can't really do anything. As far as the 0-2 pitch to Jake, he hit the 0-2 slider in the first at-bat really well. Then the next at-bat he hit an away fastball the other way. So, you know, I was just like I said earlier, just trying to move it in and out, and Curt was calling great pitches and doing what he always does, catching a great game. Just like I said, fortunate enough to have him swing through it. Q. Coach, did you consider going to the bullpen in that fifth inning? And how much of a boost was it for Taylor to give you a couple more innings after that and keep your bullpen fresh for a couple days? COACH CORBIN: I think he made us keep him in, really. Going back to that one inning I don't know how smart we looked when we intentionally walked to get to a guy that already hit two doubles. We just thought the match-up was a little bit better to keep the ball away from Moran because he's a very dangerous left-handed hitter. We just thought at least Taylor could keep the ball away from Jacob and neutralize his back a little bit. But we had Ziomek and Clinard down there, and we were thinking about going with them. But he made some nice pitches, and I felt and D.J. felt that when he got to Jacob it was his ballgame and he was going to find a way to get himself out of it. He deserved that. He's been the owner of some tough luck during the course of the year. But he's pitched so well to get us to this point right here. He deserved the opportunity to win that ballgame. Once he flowed through the sixth and we gave him the 7th as well. Q. Connor, talk a little bit about your second home run and what is it about this park that fits you? CONNOR HARRELL: Well, the wind was a factor tonight. That's also a credit to Taylor to get so many groundballs. But I just tried to get my hands extended. Get that ball in the Jet stream and get it into the seats. Obviously having that win helps, but the ballpark's big, so we get the ball in the air was important tonight for us. Q. Coach, do you have the proverbial you do everything you can to win that first game, or do you go into this what do we have to do to win two games to win the rest of the bracket against Florida? COACH CORBIN: Yeah, I don't think you can think about two games right now. There are no two games unless you win the first game. We'll treat it as such. There are nine innings you have to play, and we'll do whatever we can. We have a good guy going on the mound. We think we can start Sonny on Friday, and if that's the case, we know what we can get out of him. I think the biggest factor is being able to do something with their pitching. That's been the nemesis. I feel good about our offense, and I feel good about the mindset of where we'll be when we get to that particular game. Q. Coach, I don't know if you're a big hockey fan, but the Boston Bruins lost some close games in the Stanley Cup and came back to dominate each time. Your team seems to be doing the same thing, lose to go Florida in the SEC Tournament and dominating the Regionals, losing the other day and dominating here. Do you feel you're equating the two? COACH CORBIN: You know, I'm a big hockey fan, because you said before the game you're glad the Bruins won. But, yeah, the game that's we've played with them have been in the past. It's going to be different moving forward. Every game's different moving forward. Really, that's not going to control our thinking. We'll have a good workout tomorrow, and we'll find a way to put some pressure on Florida going into Friday. Q. When you show up at the park and you see the wind is blowing out the way it is, do you talk about getting the ball in the air? Does it affect your swing at all? CURT CASALI: I think every BP we try to take advantage of low line drives, we don't really look at it until game time. But if you put those good swings on the ball, the ball's going to fly regardless if the win wind's blowing or not. Fortunately today me and Connor got some good pitches to hit. We put flat swings on the ball and he just let the wind do the rest. CONNOR HARRELL: Yeah, I don't necessarily think he needs to change his swing. I think the most important part is that low end drive approach and let the wind take care of the rest. Q. Six home runs hit in this College World Series, your team has three of them, did you think it would be that way coming in? COACH CORBIN: Not really. As the boys said, we don't concentrate on home runs. We concentrate on flight more than anything else. But Connor and Curt are both strong, as well as Westy. And the home runs that Westy hit last weekend, I guess it was last weekend, seems like a month ago -- against Oregon State that Welsh dropped line drives that carried out of the ballpark. And Connor's been fortunate to split a couple of balls that got out there, and he's strong, and Curt did the same thing. We don't really focus on that. I don't think you can. Because once you start lifting your barrel, more times than not you're not going to have that type of success. Q. How challenging is it after five games in such a compact time to come up with something different that may work? COACH CORBIN: I don't know if it's different so much. In order to beat Florida you just can't give them anything. I think what happened the other day is Tucker got off a good swing to hit that home run. Prior to that we gave them a freebie with a walk, and we didn't handle a ball that was in the right triangle and it kind of led to the three runs. You do have to, because they put some pressure on you from a pitching standpoint. You do have to change your approach hitting-wise just a little bit. You can't do too much. They match-up well against you. When they match-up, you have to focus on hitting the ball the other way. That's just something that we're going to have to do a better job of going into Friday. But we can do that. We've matched up against them before and done very well. Hit some very tight games in Nashville. But we're looking forward to this challenge. CURT CASALI: I think it's the same story in the SEC Championship game we misplayed a 'tweener ball between first and the pitcher's mound. And unfortunately it led to a couple of runs. But with a complete team like Florida, you can't really give them anything. With the depth of their bullpen and the quality starts that they get, it's a tough challenge for us. But we feel like we matched up against them really well. It hasn't really fallen our way yet. But we're looking to change that. We're not thinking how the heck can we beat Florida. It's not really in the back of our minds at all. We feel we can compete with them. We feel we match up with them well, but we'll see what happens on Friday. We're going to come in confident, I guarantee that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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