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NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 17, 2012John SavagePat ValaikaNick Vander TuigOMAHA, NEBRASKA Arizona – 4 THE MODERATOR: First off, please give us an overview from your side. COACH SAVAGE: Well, first off, you really gotta give Konner Wade a ton of credit. We had our way with him, I don't know, a month and a half, two months ago, whatever it was, and he really, really pitched well tonight. No walks, I think he had four strikeouts. We rolled over all night. And really a credit to him. Really have to tip my hat. He pitched as well as anybody we've seen all year. I'm not sure when the last time we've been shut out. I can't even remember. I don't know if we even‑‑ it's hard to remember, but so you really gotta give him credit. We weren't ourselves, but it had a lot to do with him. We were uncharacteristically impatient. And that's what good pitchers do. And at the end of the day I thought he really made pitch after pitch. Never really got‑‑ the times we did get something going, there were two outs. And it was a difficult task to get anything off of him. I thought Nick threw the ball extremely well, our guy. And five hits in a row really was the difference in the game. That was it. I think they had six hits, five in a row. That middle of the lineup, very, very good lineup. And Nick was very sharp. I think he had eight strikeouts, one walk, and really the difference in the game was that five‑hitter stretch. That was it. It was pretty quiet from both sides the whole evening. And you gotta give Wade and you gotta give our guy, I think, a ton of credit, because they really both came out and performed at a very high level. But their guy was the best guy, and he was better than us tonight. So we'll move on. It's all about taking blows at the College World Series. It's not a dagger. It's a blow. And we'll move on and we'll be ready to play on Tuesday night. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Pat, what did you see different about Wade this time around than when you guys beat him in Tucson? PAT VALAIKA: You know, he was pounding the zone in on us a lot early. So he was getting ahead in counts. And he was just mixing pretty good. He'd go fastball in, slider. He was just keeping us off balance, and it was a lot different from when we faced him previously. He didn't have as good a command. So we had a lot more guys on. And we just pounded the ball in the dirt all game. Q. Nick, could you just take us through that five batter stretch and what happened there? NICK VANDER TUIG: I thought I made some good pitches. They put some good swings on it. Gotta give them credit. I messed up a couple times, which hurt me, to I think it was Brown, the lefty. And they put good swings on it. Q. Coach, when a pitcher is on like that, like Wade is, what kind of game adjustments did you try to have the hitters make to get him out of that rhythm? COACH SAVAGE: We talked about seeing the ball in the zone, making him bring the ball up. Both pitchers pounded the zone. And I thought the umpire got in rhythm. And there were a lot of strikes. And, like I said, I think we got him in trouble maybe twice. There was two outs. And it's tough to get a lot going with two strikes. And we told them to be patient. We were antsy, impatient, totally the opposite of what we were talking about really. But there, again, you've got to give‑‑ you can't just say we had a bad night and we weren't good enough and blah, blah, blah. That's not where we're at. We're 48 and 15, and we won a lot of games and we haven't lost in quite a while. It's baseball, and you've got to give the other side credit and they beat us tonight. And we're still in the tournament. So there you have it. Q. You said it's a blow not a dagger, could you speak to the road ahead of you to get back to the championship series? COACH SAVAGE: Mentioned the team, good question, two years ago we won tonight. And we sat there for three days, and I thought we came out not very good against TCU. And we were in the driver's seat. And then we came back and ended up winning that bracket. And so no one ever said it was going to be easy. You're surely not going to be rusty now. You're going to be going through some pitchers, and that's okay. I mean, we've done a team effort all season long. It hasn't been one or two guys. So we'll see how sharp we've been in the extra bullpens and extra batting practice, because we're going to need everybody on board. And that might be the way we have to go down that path. So we'll be ready to play on Tuesday. And we know we're going to be playing a very good Florida State team. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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