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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 21, 2014Mike FoxLandon LassiterAlex RaburnGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Florida State – 7 THE MODERATOR: Joining me are NorthCarolina head coach Mike Fox, Alex Raburn, and Landon Lassiter. Before we get started, when you ask a question, please direct it to one of the student‑athletes or the coach. Coach, an opening statement, please? COACH FOX: I think everybody sees tonight why Florida State is such a good team and had such a good year. It's very typical of how they beat you. They pitch well. Don't give you any opportunities. They take advantage. When you open the door, a walk's there, two out hits, all the things that you would script out on how to win a game. Florida State does it time after time after time. You give up the big inning and it's hard to recover that from the team that pounds the strike zone and makes plays behind their pitcher. So the double‑plays were obviously huge for them and just didn't allow us to create any opportunity offensive. Q. Was today a letdown being defeated by a superior opponent? COACH FOX: Gosh, I hope not. That would be taking a lot away from Florida State. I really think they just beat us. We're still fighting for our NCAA lives here, so I didn't sense that. But I might ask them that when we get on the bus. Q. You mentioned (Indiscernible)? COACH FOX: You know what? We just‑‑ I don't know. I'm trying not to think about it. But we've got to compete better and we've got to try to win a couple more games here in the tournament. All of that is going to play out based on how we finish here, I think. You know, just not being smart, but we're either going to be in or out. You know, if we're out, it's going to be our own doing. Q. Was taking Russell out just precautionary? COACH FOX: That's just precautionary, yes. Q. Landon, what were they doing there in the second? LANDON LASSITER: Gave us fastball down in the zone early in the game. He mixed his pitches well. Just pounded the zone and came right at us. I thought just throwing strikes was big for him. ALEX RABURN: He just came right at us. They made plays behind him, and he found the zone and didn't walk a lot of guys. Q. Coach, how big was it for you for Taylore and the rest of the guys out of pen to give you the lead? COACH FOX: Well, I mean, we'll see. We'll find out Friday and Saturday, but we did need to rest those guys. They've been taxed real good. So now a couple days off for Trayner and for Rice, and of course, Hovis and even Moss gets another couple days before he comes back, and Gallen. Hopefully that will help those guys a little bit and we'll be fresh for the next two games. Q. How influential was that double steal there in the fourth? COACH FOX: That was big. Talking about the play, it was a close play. It could go either way. They're aggressive. We knew they were going to either try to run off of Taylore, and they do a great job getting secondary leads and create things for them offensively. We made a good throw, but just didn't get the call, and that's what Florida State does. They take advantage of that. They're as good a team as any that does that. Q. Coach, you lost Zac on Friday? COACH FOX: No, you know, I didn't mean to misspeak last night. You guys caught me off guard a little bit talking about pitching. But right now I think we're going to go with‑‑ we're going to throw Moss against Virginia on Friday, and Zac Gallen on Saturday. Q. Landon, you had a really short (Indiscernible). Has that changed anything for you as you look at maybe playing that same position if he's not able to do it? LANDON LASSITER: I don't know. Just make the plays and try to win the game if we can. Unfortunately Michael had an injury and I stepped over to short. But hopefully we'll get him back as soon as possible. Q. Alex and Landon, what can you guys do moving forward? ALEX RABURN: I don't think we need to change anything. We just kind of need to string it together a little bit. I don't think any of us sensed struggling. I don't think it's really changed anything. I think we just need to maybe play a little better offensively. LANDON LASSITER: Yeah, just string some things together and hopefully get some momentum going, and hopefully we can do that against Virginia. Q. Coach, you played a lot of baseball against some really good teams. Do you think it's wearing on you headed in here at all? COACH FOX: Oh, no, no. I mean, this is what we're supposed to be doing this time of year. These guys don't have anything else to do. It's not wearing on me. It better not be wearing on them. This is what we practice for and go all year for is to get to this time of the year. This is the fun time of the year. They've got plenty of time to rest. We've just got to go out and keep competing and we do keep competing. You notice a guy put a 4 spot on us, and we came back and got a couple hits and tried to string some things together. So we're going to keep playing. You know, you've got to celebrate game day and enjoy it. Q. Coach, what are the plans for the day off tomorrow? COACH FOX: We'll get up and we need to lift a little bit tomorrow. Our pitchers don't need to do a whole lot. We'll have a light lift with our strength coach and maybe hit the cages. I don't think we're going to get on the field tomorrow. It is time to rest a little bit and get off our legs a little bit. Maybe that's what you meant by wearing a little bit. I mean, you do have to be leery about‑‑ I think I misinterpreted your question, but yes. You do have to be careful about rest, and it has been a long season. But we prepare for that and just the lifting and everything. So it will be a light day tomorrow. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH FOX: Yeah, you know, Taylore's just one of those guys where he has to keep the ball down, and obviously they get some ground balls. He wasn't a good match‑up there for Gonzalez. The ball just kind of runs. It's his swing and Taylore's kind of two‑seam movement, and he's pulling those balls foul and hitting the daylights out of them. Just left one out over the plate that got up in the air. But I think the difference between the two pitchers was that Strode threw a ton of first pitch strikes, and I don't think Taylore threw enough of those to really set up his other pitches and be able to throw a slider a little bit more. Didn't have as much confidence in it to throw it when he was behind. So he sat on that fastball and they're a good fastball hitting team. Q. Coach, will Michael play on Friday? COACH FOX: I do not know. I'll have to talk to our trainer and see what his status is. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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