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Baseball:
May 29, 2008 Press Conference - Eastern Illinois and Oral Roberts
May 29, 2008
NCAA Lincoln Regional Opening Statement "We're very happy to be here. This is a great baseball town here. Nebraska has had a great program for a very long time. This is a beautiful facility, and we've heard great things about it. We feel blessed and fortunate to be in the NCAA Tournament. I know there are a lot of good teams at home who didn't get into the tournament. We enjoy it, and we're very glad to be here." On winning momentum in the postseason "I think it's a little bit of a season getting into the playoffs. Winning always helps. When you're winning, it can bleed into the clubs and get you going. It can get you moving in the right direction. Winning is always a good thing. We hope it carries on and moves us in the right direction. It also does feel like it's kind of a new season and a new start." On UC Irvine starter Scott Gorgen "He's pretty special. I haven't had a chance to see him pitch, but he's got near 100 innings and somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 hits. He's missing a lot of bats, and he's up for college pitcher of the year, and rightfully so. Those numbers are very, very special. He's a special guy, and it's going to be a very difficult test for us in the first game." On pitcher Michael Jarman "We've kind of run them out the same way all year for us. Michael has been very solid, especially the last couple of months, and continues to improve. He's got great stuff. Everything he throws moves, so when he's on, he's very difficult to hit. He's a senior, and we'll rely on some of that senior leadership. I expect a good outing from Mike." On preparing his team through the season "I think what you have to do to prepare your club is a non-conference schedule. You try to go to as many places like this as there are in the country. We saw the University of Texas play. We played at Baylor and Pepperdine. We want to play at some of the best schools in the country and get our kids in that kind of environment. If you can get them comfortable in uncomfortable situations, obviously that's key. Each year, you have a new team. You have new players; you have turnover. It kind of starts all over again, so you rely on guys like Michael and Brian to help the new guys get through the situation and let them know what to expect. There's not really much that I can tell them other than to prepare and maintain what they've been doing all year. The worst thing they can do right now is do something extra and push themselves to do something special at this time. Just try to keep it ordinary and do the s! ame things in practice. No one game is bigger than the other, so just continue to do your same routine."
On Brian Van Kirk "Brian has always had the potential to be special. He kind of went through the learning process last year and had an opportunity to play every day last year as a Division I guy. His swing, or his stroke, as we call it, is about as good as you're going to see in college baseball. It's a professional stroke. He has professional power, but without a solid approach, you're going to move through some pitches. I think Brian has really stayed disciplined in his own this year. He didn't chase as many pitches. He didn't have as many home runs early, and I told him it will come. Just continue to do what you're doing and stick with your approach, and things start falling into place. His approach and his maturity as a player and a person...I'm just very proud of Brian with all that happens here this weekend. He's had a fantastic year, and he's a great kid to coach and a pleas! ure to watch." On developing the pitching staff "If you want to start from the beginning, it's been a development process for us. I always thought Michael could be special, and at times this year, he's been special. If you go to Baylor and punch out 14, I think that's pretty good stuff. I think Baylor has one of the top 10 programs in the country. I know they're not in the tournament, but that program is very, very good. It's just a maturity process. It's the same thing with Carlos Luna. It's just a matter of developing their stuff, refining their mechanics. It's nice to see them start to move in the right direction. The last few months, they have improved dramatically. I don't necessarily know if we're under the radar, but I think they're under development and starting to pitch and peak at the right time." Senior Brian Van Kirk On ORU's offensive approach "We have a lot of confidence. We feel like any guy in the order, we can score runs. Our offensive approach is don't let anyone beat you. Keep your foot on the gas. See the ball, hit the ball. Try to keep it simple. We feel like we can score runs, and we have a pretty good offense." On Scott Gorgen "I saw his twin brother last year, but I've never seen him. I think it's exciting. You're in the postseason, so you're going to see everyone's best. Obviously, he's a fantastic pitcher. I think anyone who has a competitive nature will take it as it is. It doesn't matter who it is, it's going to be exciting. On comparing last year's regional appearance with this season "Last year was the first regional I was ever in as a Division I. You get those nerves out of your system, and you know what to expect a little more this year. On being named an All-American "I take it with honor. That's the regular season, and this is now. You take it one step at a time now." Senior Michael Jarman On the pitching staff "We've worked hard all season to get to this point. We struggled a little bit in the conference tournament, but we feel good and strong. I think all of our starters will have their first time in a regional, and it will be good experience for us. I think we'll do fine." NCAA Lincoln Regional Opening Statement "The key thing is how well we've played at the end of the year. It took a while for us to develop. Towards the end of the season things started to develop, we pitched well the entire year. We went into the tournament with a lot of confidence and racked up four straight wins so we're excited to be here but we've been playing really good ball the last couple of weeks so we're pretty encouraged coming into this weekend." On shuffling the lineup throughout the season "I think the key thing was awhile back I had Brett (Nommensen) in the three spot and moved him into the lead-off spot and put Zach (Skidmore) into the lineup. We had four games in the conference that I believe we didn't score a run and with aluminum bats, that's pretty unlikely. I went with more of an offensive lineup at the end. Alex Gee got into position there and played first base. We kind of struggled mentally in the middle of the year when we weren't scoring runs or pitching well and that's hard on everybody, so at the end we started scoring runs and it makes everyone more confident. Once the bats started going, the pitchers started going too and we pretty much had everything together on offense and defense at the end." On freshman pitcher Josh Mueller "I think it's amazing. I think the article in the paper made a comment about how he's only a freshman. When he came into our program, we knew he had a lot of potential, and he kind of started as the No. 3 arm, then moved to No. 2 and No. 1. He handled the pressure situations in conference play really well, and he's the guy that does a great job with his fastball. The thing for him is just how well he handles the pressure. To me, it doesn't matter, the No. 1 pitcher is the guy who has to handle the pressure to have a big weekend. He's done extremely well to give us a chance to do what we've done this season." On preparing Mueller for the Haymarket Park atmosphere "We told him pretty much the same as always, don't let all the fans get to you and just go out and play your own game. We played Missouri a couple of weeks ago, and the umpire was making it kind of rough on Josh. He didn't handle it well, and it was a great experience for him. He learned a valuable lesson. The next couple of outings were phenomenal. Being a freshman, he learned things along the way, and that's going to have a lot to do with tomorrow." On big crowds "I think the crowd is in it if you don't play well. If you start playing good baseball, then you take the crowd out of that. We haven't talked about it at all with the team, but they've seen it on the internet. We really think our focus as a staff, even in the tournament, is that we didn't talk a lot about the other team, we just talk about doing the things we do well. That's why we've had such success." On scouting Nebraska "We don't give them the scouting report till about 20 minutes before game time. We used to break it down so much to the point that players didn't play well. (Nebraska) likes to get hit by pitches, we know that, so we're going to try to widen the batter's box tomorrow. We go over that tonight, and then we try to touch over it tomorrow before the game." Outfielder Brett Nommensen On reacting to the Haymarket Park environment "We've all been online looking at the internet about all the crowds they've had all year. For us, it's not a new experience to get a rush of the crowd when you first run out there. I've been telling the guys, they're not really going to be on our side, so stay focused and go out and play ball. We'll have fun out there if we're playing good baseball." On his role "Since I got back to a leadoff position, I've been there for pretty much my whole career. The first at-bat, my goal is to pretty much take as many pitches as I can and to make the pitcher work. When I'm up there, I'm just trying to get on base for the guys behind me to hit us in. For me, I'm not a real big guy. I'm just more of a run guy, trying to get in scoring position for the other guys to hit me in." On Nebraska throwing a mid-week starter "It's their preference. For me, it's kind of like any day, any team can come out and win with good baseball. If they want to go ahead and save their No. 1 and they get unlucky and we end up winning, it's their fault. For us, we don't care who they're pitching. We're just going to go out and play. We have the scouting report on them, and they have the scouting report on us. They're going to know a bunch about us; we're going to know a bunch about them. We're just here to play baseball and have fun." Infielder Jordan Tokarz On being viewed as an underdog "I feel like we are kind of (an underdog). No one is expecting us to do anything here, and as a team, we feel like we can do something. We're playing really good baseball right now, so we're just coming here to try to play some good baseball and have a little fun." On Nebraska "I just know that it doesn't matter who they pitch, they're going to come with a good arm at us. They're not one of the better hitting teams, but I know they're going to be able to hit. That's basically all I know about that." |
