could just fill the air go out of their dugout when Zane started throwing.â Senior First Baseman Jake Davies. On his m
2012 ACC Baseball Championship May 23-27, 2012, NewBridge Bank Park, Greensboro, North Carolina
Game No. 13 - No. 8 Georgia Tech vs. No. 6 Miami Quotes Georgia Tech Head Coach Danny Hall “I’m just so proud of my team. I thought they played great baseball all week. They played, in my mind, one of the toughest tournaments in the country when you have the quality of eight great teams from the ACC fighting for the championship. To get through that thing going 4-0 as the eight seed coming in just says a lot about my team and what they did this week. They played great baseball and did what they needed to do for us to win, and I cannot be more proud of a group of guys.” On the team’s strengths this weekend… “I just think we played our best baseball. We got timely hits when we needed them, we made plays when we needed to, we made pitches when we needed to, and we got contributions from everybody. Things just clicked. It was our best baseball of the year, and to go 4-0 and go through the teams that we went through to win it, you have to be clicking on all cylinders and we did this week.” On having position players such as Jake Davies and Zane Evans pitching during the tournament… “Well these guys pitched growing up in high school. We were down in the dumps when guys like Luke Bard and Matthew Grimes (got hurt). We had four quality guys (in the bullpen) go down from about the first or second weekend going forward, and it put us in a tailspin. It maybe took me a little while just to figure out what we needed to do pitching-wise. It was probably about a month ago that I just decided that I needed to put Jake (Davies) in our starting rotation, so I put him in the starting rotation with the idea that we’d have to build his arm strength up because he had thrown some in relief but not a lot because he was playing first base every day.” On Miami cutting Georgia Tech’s lead to one run in the sixth inning… “They had all the momentum. They had a lot of guys on, and they kept coming back closer, but I think the big thing was that they never tied us and they never got the lead. Zane’s two-run single with two outs was huge, and then he just dominated the game (on the mound). You could just fill the air go out of their dugout when Zane started throwing.” Senior First Baseman Jake Davies On his mentality entering the tournament… “I just came in with the idea that it’s my last hurrah, and I just wanted to go out and play as hard as I could. First of all, we needed to win a couple just to get in the NCAA Tournament. You want to play as hard as you can, and hopefully your play will pick up the other guys, and I think that’s what happened. When you have all 27 guys in the dugout with one idea, and that being the will to win, it’s a pretty hard train to stop.” Sophomore Designated Hitter and Relief Pitcher Zane Evans On his pitching performance today… “I was just spotting my fastball. I lost my slider in the middle of the year when I was hurt, but I finally found it. I guess I found it today, and it was really working well.” On playing catcher, pitcher and batting as the designated hitter all over the course of the tournament… “I don’t really do anything different. I did it my whole life through high school and then summer ball. You just have to come out and approach the play as hard as you can. If I’m catching, I just have to go out there and give it my all behind the plate.” On his two-run single in the seventh inning… “The first pitch he threw me was a fastball up, and I took a hack at it and tried to hit it out. Coach Hall told me to slow it down a little bit, and I got a changeup and I don’t think it was going to be a strike but I just poked it out into center field. It worked well for us. I knew we needed some more runs, and once I got that hit, I could tell our dugout really picked it up and we were all a lot more confident going into the next inning.” Senior Relief Pitcher Jarrett Didrick On his chances to pitch prior to entering the game… “I thought I had a chance to pitch. I thought maybe I could get an inning in there in the seventh or eighth inning. I wasn’t looking at four innings.”
2012 ACC Baseball Championship May 23-27, 2012, NewBridge Bank Park, Greensboro, North Carolina
Game No. 13 - No. 8 Georgia Tech vs. No. 6 Miami Quotes Miami coach Jim Morris General comments “They outhit us, outpitched us and outplayed us. I did just find out that we’re hosting one of the regionals. That’s big for our guys. That’s a big goal when we start everything out.” On why he stuck with starting pitcher Javi Salas through the first inning “You don’t want it to get out of hand, but at the same time, he has pitched very well this year and you don’t want to go get him too quick.” On 1B Peter O’Brien, who returned to action after a broken hand “He’ll be better next weekend than he was this weekend. He hadn’t seen any live pitching for five and a half weeks before this weekend.” Chantz Mack On hosting a regional “To find that out is huge for us. We’re kinda down now, having just lost the ACC Championship Game, but that (hosting) has given us momentum. We know we’re at home. There’s a lot of tradition in that ballpark, and we’re going to be confident going into that.” On what he gained from this weekend “I found out a little about myself. I saw what I’m capable of. I felt pretty comfortable at the plate every day. I was able to get in scoring position for the guys behind me. I wanted to help out any way I could.” OF Dale Carey On how they got back into contention after trailing 4-0 “Put up a run every inning. They got four and we just told ourselves that if we put up a run every inning, we’ll come back. We fought hard and just came up a little short.” 3B Brad Fieger On his feelings about the team in light of the tournament “We’re coming out of this tournament better than we came in. We’re just starting our momentum and hopefully this will carry into the regionals.”
