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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 24, 2014Jacob HeywardJim MorrisBrian RadziewskiGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Miami: 6 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Miami, Head Coach Jim Morris, and student athletes Jacob Heyward and Bryan Radziewski. Comments when you're ready to make a statement. COACH MORRIS: It's a big win, tough one. I tell you what, this conference is tough. For the people that were in here the first day, I said at the press conference that anybody can win in this tournament, 1 through 10. If I'm not wrong, it looks like we're going to have a 9‑6 seed playing for the Championship. It's a great league, great league. A lot of good pitching, a lot of good defense, a lot of guys that battle. There used to be two echelons ‑‑ two groups in this thing from the top to the bottom, and that's not the way anymore, it's a great league. Our guys played well, and B. Rad had another good game pitching, and Heyward had a multi‑game hit and scored the winning. That was huge for a freshman. We started five freshman today if y'all don't know that, but we started five freshman. And, you know, credit to our guys to keep battling. We fell apart after that home run there in the 9th inning, but our guys kept battling and we came through there at the end. Exciting win for us. It's great to go into the NCAA Tournament with a win rather than a loss, I can tell you that. Q. Talk about this team's willingness to fight. When Duke started to come back, a lot of teams would have laid down. Your team didn't do that? COACH MORRIS: We got a big pitch from Javi Salas, that's got to be huge. That's his first appearance in his career in that type of situation. I hate to put someone in that situation like that. I like to have someone with experience before you put 'em in, they gotta go in and close the first game in this type situation. But that's really big. Our players did battle, we played really good defense, a lot of our pitchers threw well, we got some big hits, but be could've got more big hits to score more runs. Just gotta get better and keep working hard to get hot, because we have won a lot of 1‑run games. I don't know, I think we have 15, 1‑run games now, and we have had tons of em, and we won I think 12 of them. It's time for Pepto Bismol for me. It's amazing that we have won most of those. Q. Jim, you made a lineup change after the first night and put Jacob in and brought him back today. Talk about his performance today. COACH MORRIS: Willie Abreu had a hamstring pull a couple of weeks ago, and I put him in then, and he hadn't gotten to play a lot, and he's a freshman. He's shown me a lot. He's had a lot of good at‑bats since he's been in. He's got on base, hit the ball hard, of course today is the biggest hits he's had here at Miami. That double today, and he scored a run, but he's shown me a lot. I know he don't like to talk about this but he's got good genes, and he's athletic, and that's a good thing. I'm giving you a compliment, you and your whole family, really got good genes, and that helps you to play in this type of situation, and I'm very excited with the way he's coming on. Q. Jacob, what's going through your mind when that pitch went behind the catcher? JACOB HEYWARD: I couldn't tell where it was going but I listened to my coach and realized that the ball was gone and just took off. Q. Can you talk about Bryan's performance today after the start to the tournament, him coming out and kind of shutting the door on Duke? COACH MORRIS: Well, Bryan has had a lot of big wins in his career. He's‑‑ a lot of strikeouts in his career, I guess he's 7th on the career list for strikeouts and up there on wins, too, somewhere. I don't know where exactly but he's had a lot of big wins for us, and he's a veteran for us. He's graduating, and I'm sure will sign a pro contract. Don't a lot for us in a lot of big games. Today's win is huge for me. I don't know where it puts us in our situation as far as hosting. I feel confident we will host a regional. We hope to host a super regional because of winning the regular season ACC, and they say how do you finish; we finished 27 out of 30 W's, so gotta be ready for things like that to happen. Q. Bryan, talk about not losing three in a row here. Coach talked about the importance of this victory on your psyche and going into this tournament. BRYAN RADZIEWSKI: Everyone is huge and we don't want to go into the postseason losing three in a row. We had a national see on the line, and we needed a big win today. Q. Talk about Duke. Obviously there is a lot riding for them. COACH MORRIS: I think they're a key club. They have got good pitching; they're playing well. It's the best Duke club that I can remember, and I can remember playing Duke for a long time between Miami and Georgia Tech. I think they've got a talented club, starting with their pitching staff. They're well coached. I'm very impressed with the direction that program is headed, and they've got a great product to sell and a great AD in Kevin White that likes baseball. I know him personally and wants to do well and I think they're only going to get better. Q. You've got a lot of guys in the bull pen, and Thomas seemed to be cruising, and you make a change. Do you ever second guess yourself sometimes? COACH MORRIS: Only when you lose, with every other Miami Hurricane fan. Q. Or do you have guys that you're going to go to in certain situations? COACH MORRIS: You try to, if you can, but after you get into extra innings, like Gonzalez getting a save. That's his first opportunity in four years for a pitcher for Miami to be put in in that situation, but he pitched an extra inning game a few weeks ago in a 16‑inning game, but that's the first time I brought him in right with the game on the line. He started that inning. You gotta go and we got three main guys in our bullpen, and we try to match up with left/right as much as we can, and we got all the statistics and try to figure it out and go with that. That's all you can do, basically. Q. You played them four times in 15 days now. Do you think they are a regional‑caliber team? COACH MORRIS: Absolutely. I'm looking forward to see how the ACC teams do in the NCAA Tournament because there are some really good clubs in here and we gotta get 8, maybe 9, 10 teams in the tournament. We've never had 9. This year we gotta have 9 from the ACC, and I think you gotta consider 10 teams, but a lot of teams that will go in, and I look toward to seeing how the ACC does when we get into the NCAA Tournament. Q. Bryan, you guys were a top seed, 27 wins. Talk about not being around tomorrow, does that bother you at all? BRYAN RADZIEWSKI: Definitely. Those past two games were a shock for us. We ended the season so well and all because of the freshmen, and we're not going to let that affect us. National seed or not, at the end of the day we gotta win and that's what we're going to be doing. THE MODERATOR: Thank you all very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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