Postgame Quotes: Game 1 of NCAA Baseball Austin Super Regional
Arizona State 3, Texas 1
UFCU Disch-Falk Field
ARIZONA STATE
Head Coach Tim Esmay
Opening statement: That was a heck of a college baseball game. I thought it was well pitched by both sides. As you can tell, nothing was easy out there. We were just fortunate enough to have opportunities and seized a couple opportunities, and that really was pretty much the story of the ballgame. I thought pitching and defense was going to be what this series is all about and that proved true today.
On Brady Rodgers’ pitching tonight: I thought Brady coming home to Texas and [having] all his fans in the stands, he went out and established the strike zone. And I thought Brady did a great job of minimizing like we talked about. He did a great job getting himself out of trouble. And we talk about this all the time, you have to comfortable being uncomfortable. And I thought Brady did a heck of a job tonight to be in those situations and getting himself out.
On Mitchell Lambson’s pitching: At that point, Mitchell was not doing anything that allowed to think that we need to get somebody hot. Obviously we would have had some guys hot if we needed to go down that road. But the way Mitchell was pitching, he pretty much silenced our bullpen at that point.
Sophomore P Brady Rodgers
On if he had a lot of fans here tonight: I think my ticket list was 70 or 72 people.
On pitching in the Texas weather: It never feels good, but I was used to it. Some of the other guys are not used to it, so they were sweating a lot. I was just used to it, and it didn’t really affect me too much.
On his performance tonight: First of all, I just want to thank the defense. The defense was unreal. [Third baseman] Riccio [Torrez] made some good plays, [shortstop] Deven [Marrero] made some good plays. It kept the leadoff runners off and kept them from starting their offense and doing what they like to do – getting the leadoff runner and getting him over. I think that is what the whole team did well as a whole is just keeping the leadoff runner off the bases.
Junior P Mitchell Lambson
On pitching against Texas again after giving up home runs in the CWS two years ago: I think about it every once in a while, but not so much anymore. Anytime you lose a baseball game it drives you to work harder and get better.
On if this pitching appearance was gratifying: I’m just glad I could help our team win today. Anything I could do to help our team win was what I was trying to do.
Sophomore DH Joey DeMichele
On facing Taylor Jungmann: We knew going into it that he was going to be tough. He is a high draft pick, he is a good pitcher. But we faced [UCLA starting pitchers Trevor] Bauer and [Gerrit] Cole. He had his stuff tonight. I got a couple hits, I didn’t hit them hard, but I was fortunate enough for them to fall in. we knew going into it that pitching and defense are really the key things. That is the way college baseball has been the whole year.
TEXAS
Head Coach Augie Garrido
Opening statement: The momentum of the game was in the third inning. We made it through the first two innings defensively. In the third inning, we had a communication error. What you saw in that play was about communications. One little thing where the three people involved were unsure about what was going on. There were assumptions that were being made that threw the timing off a little bit. As a result of us not recovering offensively, that stood up and separated the two teams. Just one little thing. Those are the nuances of baseball; those are the things that people would never even recognize to why they happened. It just looked like it was kind of clumsy and lacked good timing. In reality, it was about bad communication and I suppose that that’s what I am here for. If we are looking for blame I would be glad to take it, but that’s what happened. I thought offensively, we competed. I thought we took a lot more quality at bats than bad at bats. I thought their defense was sensational. They made plays when they needed to make them. They made pitches when they needed to make them. Taylor (Jungmann) pitched a good game, maybe a great game, but it gets lost in the loss itself. My assessment is that I guess this is how baseball goes sometimes.
On the momentum during tonight’s game: The momentum changed in the second half of the game but it was largely due to their pitching and their defense. We still hit the ball hard. We did contribute to the runs that cost us the game. Let’s not forget all the things that they did. They did a really good job from the mound and a really good job defensively. The only other runs we had a chance to score they cut them down as well. We could hammer ourselves into the ground but I’m not sure that’s all there was to it. I would be surprised if they didn’t think that they played a really fine game.
Junior P Taylor Jungmann
On comparing his performance tonight to last week’s vs. Kent State: I thought I did a lot better job of staying on my game and going right at hitters. They did a great job of putting the ball in play. They were tough outs. But I thought I did a lot better job of going at guys and staying on my game.
Junior SS Brandon Loy
On their success in elimination games this season: We just have a lot of fight. It’s a no-tomorrow situation and that’s how we look at it. That’s the approach we have to take towards it. There’s a lot of guys on this team that it could be their last game at The University of Texas and they don’t want that to happen. We are a team with a lot of fight and a lot of guys that don’t want to lose. We have to take that approach into tomorrow and see what happens.