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NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUPER REGIONALS: LUBBOCKJune 11, 2016Robert DuggerEric GutierrezTim TadlockLubbock, Texas Texas Tech - 3, East Carolina - 1 (F/13) TIM TADLOCK: How about that for a baseball game, huh? Had to be fun from where you guys were. Equally as fun from where we were. It's kind of what you do this far to be in these situations. You know, obviously Dugger came up really big, and we had a bunch of guys come up big throughout the game. But really something that I think our group embraces is playing games like that, and looking forward to tomorrow. Q. Eric, I know you've had some big at-bats in your life, but was that the biggest hit of your life and what was that feeling like coming around first? ERIC GUTIERREZ: I mean, it was great. I mean, just got a good pitch to hit, you know? Q. Was that the biggest of your career? ERIC GUTIERREZ: I can't remember to be honest. Q. Gut, you really struggled going into that at-bat; I think you were 0 for 16. What was going through your mind during that at-bat and then as you were rounding out you threw your arms in the air and pretty celebratory. ERIC GUTIERREZ: I mean, I have confidence in myself. Obviously the team has, too. Just because I was 0 for 16, to me it doesn't matter. Just go up to the plate and battle and grind it out. Q. Obviously coach and the rest of the team trusted you at the end of the game. What does that mean to you? ROBERT DUGGER: You know, it gives me a lot of confidence. I have a lot of confidence in myself, but when Coach puts me out there, I've got to do a job, so... Q. Robert, I think that was your longest outing of the year. What was going through your mind as you entered the 12th and the 13th and what were you kind of telling yourself and what did coach come out and tell you the last two innings? ROBERT DUGGER: Well, to be honest with you, I didn't even know what inning it was. I was just going out there and pitching, doing my best to throw strikes and let my teammates work behind me. Q. Eric, can you just speak to your ability on the defensive end because I know you really struggled at the plate, but at the same time you made one, two, three maybe even huge plays defensively that maybe led to double plays and kept your team in the game throughout. ERIC GUTIERREZ: Yeah, just got to separate that. You can't take that to the field. It's two different things. Teams that go to Omaha play defense, you know? You have to separate those kind of things and just play defense all the time. Q. Eric, obviously a long game. How do you guys carry the momentum that you guys got at the end of it into tomorrow? ERIC GUTIERREZ: I mean, we have to -- it takes 27 guys. It's not going to take nine. We already know that it takes 27. We know what we're capable of, and I mean, we're happy right now. We're ready to go. I mean, we can play right now. I mean, we're ready to go. Q. Obviously Gut has been a really special player for you. What does it mean for him to you to deliver that hit and him be the one to lift his team up? TIM TADLOCK: I'd say he's more than a -- hmm, more than a special player. I mean, that display he put on, I'm not so sure it wasn't more impressive than the way he played today. He's just an awesome young man and loves to play. He's got great makeup. At the same time I would tell you, I think he's serious. I mean, he's ready to go play right now. I mean, he really does like playing baseball. As far as what it means to me, I mean, it means -- what it means is for all those guys in that locker room, gives them another day to go play. Obviously if we started the year and said, hey, we've got one game to go tee it up, play to go to Omaha, we'd say, let's tee it up. Q. After a game like that can you just kind of update us on your pitching situation, who you could maybe start tomorrow and would Howard or Moseley be available tomorrow? TIM TADLOCK: Absolutely. That would be the answer there as far as those two would be available. It would be really tough to bring Dugger back I would say, but everybody else I'd say all hands on deck. Q. You changed up the lineup just a little bit moving gut to the 2 spot. Just kind of talk about where that came from and then obviously the perfect timing of him just being at bat. TIM TADLOCK: Yeah, I don't know. Something we just kind of talked about, and really wanted to get Zach Davis in the game. Really wanted Gut to come up in some big spots, and he did. He came up in some big spots. You're not always going to get the results you want, obviously, but we'll take all those spots we had today with all of our guys. You'd take it every day. Really as far as the lineup goes, again, it was really more trying to get Zach Davis in there, just trying to piece it all together. They've got some good arms in that bullpen. Ingle threw the ball really well and Lanier threw the ball well, Bridges. All those guys threw the ball well. So that's kind of how that came about. Q. Coach, Dugger came into the game with 1st and 2nd nobody out and he was just nails. He locked it down the entire extra innings. Can you speak of the makeup of him to relish that spot? He looked comfortable. What kind of a weapon is that you have in the bullpen that you have in Dugger? TIM TADLOCK: Yeah, he's a former high school shortstop, Tomball High School. You guys wouldn't believe it, but he was about 5'9" when he graduated from high school, and was really a good shortstop for Doug Rush down there, good friend of mine. So he's a good guy to have in a game when you have some bunt situations, because he can get off the mound and field his position. He's got good feet. So that's kind of -- I mean, yeah, it was nice to see him get out of it for sure. Q. You turned four double plays today. How big was that to keep y'all in the game? TIM TADLOCK: Well, I think probably -- you've probably heard me say this before. At any level of championship baseball you need to turn double plays. The teams that do get to keep playing. A lot of times you see it. When you don't turn one, it ends up hurting you. Fortunate today those balls went to us and we were allowed to turn them. Q. What does it say about these two teams, the way this ballgame was played, and obviously the end result? TIM TADLOCK: Yeah, East Carolina, looks like to me they've got a lot of really tough kids. Looks like Coach Godwin has got them playing really hard. They're playing really good defense. The second baseman and third baseman, just off the top of my head, those guys took two, three hits away easily, just moving left and right. The short-hop play the third baseman made, made it look really easy, but it wasn't an easy play. And the same thing with the second baseman. You start talking about Sutton in left field, he looks like playing like center field out there. I think any time you get two teams playing to go to Omaha or to play for a super regional championship or at this point in the year, I mean, it's probably pretty easy to say there's some good makeup on both teams. Q. You said before your final game with Dallas Baptist last week that if you were told at the beginning of the year you'd be playing one game, line it up for a trip to the supers, your team would have taken it in a heartbeat, now you're lining it up one game away from Omaha. What do you expect the game to be like tomorrow as far as your team going in? TIM TADLOCK: I really wish I knew the answer to that. That's the beautiful thing about baseball; you don't know what to expect every time you line up and you manage a game or you play a game or you watch a game. You always can see something different. Right now what I expect is to prepare the right way and then get ready to play. I mean, and then once the ball goes in the air, there's some things you control and some things you can't. We'll show up tomorrow and try to get them ready to go and go from there. Q. The teams also had a big day off the field this weekend. Can you talk about what it means to this program to have 10 players drafted? TIM TADLOCK: Hmm. Well, you want them to be able to chase their dreams. Simple as that. And they're going to get to. Q. The play in the top of the ninth -- TIM TADLOCK: I didn't even know it was 10, by the way. Q. Davis was the last. TIM TADLOCK: And by the way, I knew Gut was taken before the game, and then after that. And he was just fired up about it. You talk about a kid that's outworked everybody his whole life, and he gets a chance to go do it. Pretty neat. Q. The play in the top of the ninth obviously could have been a huge momentum change, but your guys didn't let it affect them. What does that mean for you that they don't let a play like that change the game? TIM TADLOCK: I don't even know what the play was. What was it? Q. Tyler Floyd, play at home. TIM TADLOCK: I mean, it's just baseball. The first baseman made a great play. I think we already mentioned the other ones. He makes a great play knocking the ball down. Has the wherewithal to go get the ball, one-hops the catcher on a long hop, and then the catcher makes a great play on the tag. And it's baseball; I mean, you have to send him. There's not anybody in here that doesn't send him. Really didn't think twice about it after that. I mean, obviously, yeah, we're pulling for the safe, but anybody is, as far as that goes. Really you've got to move on and keep playing. Q. Y'all get to be the home team tomorrow playing in front of all of your fans. What is it like to kind of really get that last home-field advantage for a trip to the College World Series? TIM TADLOCK: Well, fans have been great. I think obviously the ballpark is -- we've got a great environment to play in. What it'll mean is if we win it will be really outstanding, obviously, as far as that goes. You know, the visitor I guess has won two days in a row, so we need to change that tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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