|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMay 25, 2014Anthony PapioJohn SzefcGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Georgia Tech: 9 THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Maryland. Head Coach John Szefc and student athlete Anthony Papio. We'll take comments from Coach, first. COACH SZEFC: Obviously not the result we were looking for and it's kind of a pretty disappointing day in general for our guys and for the program. Tough one to deal with, but, you know, the other side of the coin as I tried to explain to our guys, as tough as this one is, tomorrow we will be sitting in a restaurant in College Park hopefully getting a good feel as to where we might be playing next weekend in the NCAA Tournament. That's been kind of a goal for us for a long time, since I got here. Certainly since a lot of these other guys have been here well before I got here. It's kind of a tough day, but one that hopefully tomorrow at this time we will be able to clearly put behind us and look toward next weekend. I explained to our guys it's difficult to win an 18‑team tournament, no less a 10‑team tournament, no less a 10‑team tournament with the people that were in this tournament. So I think this tournament, as unfortunate as it ended for us, has prepared us for the NCAA Tournament and we certainly look forward to that next weekend. Q. Do you think it was similar from yesterday in that the team came back unrested and the bullpen surrendered a lot of runs in the late innings? COACH SZEFC: Yeah, it is. Q. Do you think this is a result of the bullpen? COACH SZEFC: I don't know, our bullpen has been pretty good all year, and I cant knock our bullpen. Unfortunately it wasn't there today, but we wouldn't be here at this point if it wasn't for those guys down there that have done a very good job. That's the way unfortunately in baseball sometimes your pen‑‑ normally if you're having a successful season, your bullpen is probably going to be pretty successful 75, 80% of the time. Unfortunately here it just didn't happen. I don't know if it was because of the layoff we had or whatever but that's just the way it went. Q. You took your shots obviously the past two games but, talk about the tournament as a whole. COACH SZEFC: Coming here after an 8‑day layoff playing against these kind of people, let's be honest. You never want to get in a Championship game and lose. This is the first time as a head coach I've lost a Championship‑‑ well, first time since 1998, which God knows my kids weren't even born there for Christ's sake, and you don't want to get here and lose the game, but unfortunately somebody's got to lose. Hopefully we will get something out of this, and I think we have a chance to do well in the NCAA regional coming out of this tournament and I think the tournament was run very, very well by the ACC. People were very professional and it was a great week for our guys, and our program in general, families. Outside of not winning this thing, I have no regrets whatsoever about coming down here. Our program grew by leaps and bounds this week. Q.  Anthony, this is the first time Maryland has been in the postseason since 2005. Obviously it's a hard‑fought game. What do you think you guys learned about the batting order going into postseason? ANTHONY PAPIO: Obviously we got to see a lot of good arms, and I think that will help us out going down the road. The teams we played this week are as good if not better than the teams we're going to face next weekend in the regional, so I think just the experience of that helped us out a lot and I think that's going to make us better moving forward. Q. Going back to the bullpen for a second, what was the thinking in bringing in‑‑ in the 7th inning, because it's usually earlier‑‑ COACH SZEFC: You're talking about a Championship game here you know. We brought him in in that spot because he's been our best guy on the back end and I think we will continue to do that. If you got a Cadillac down in the bullpen you bring the Cadillac into the game. I can sleep well knowing we brought our Cadillac into the game. And also with a guy on third base, you're in need of a strikeout there and he had swing‑and‑miss stuff and their guy did a good job of putting the ball in play and tying it up with that sacrifice play but I would do it a million times the same way if we had a chance to do it again. Q. Coach, what are you going to miss most about the ACC? COACH SZEFC: We will miss the competition. There are good teams in this league, really good coaches that I consider friends of mine that I really respect. Not saying we won't get that in the Big 10 because I think we will, but there are special programs in this league, special baseball programs in this league, special coaches and the programs and teams, and I think we will miss that. I think any baseball coach would tell you that, and if he didn't, he will be lying. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, all. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|