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NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUPER REGIONALS: BATON ROUGE

June 11, 2016

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

CCU - 11, LSU - 8

PAUL MAINIERI: Well, started out as a very exciting game for us. I thought Alex Lange was pitching really good fastball for four or five innings there. I thought he looked tremendous, had a lot of strikeouts. They were extremely tough outs and he I thought was really competing hard. He was getting his breaking ball over and really just was pitching really good baseball.

And then we got the three-run homer by Deichmann, which really was an exciting moment. Place was electric, was loud.

Then we got a 4-2 lead, and going into the sixth inning, I think Alex will tell you when he gets up here, that probably the biggest mistake he made was walking the leadoff batter in the sixth inning. And then we had a passed ball right after that and we kind of gave them some life; and like good teams do, they took advantage of it.

You know, they threw up some good at-bats right after that against Alex. And he was competing hard like he always does, but you know, I could kind of see that it was time to pull him. He was running out of gas there, and unfortunately -- I thought Parker did a tremendous job when he came in, limited the damage a little bit there, and we went to Latz and they got a couple of good swings on him, and before you know it, they put up crooked numbers.

So it's a tough loss for us, but it's a three-game series, or best two-out-of-three. And if we were sitting here tonight, if we had won, I would tell you, we haven't got anything wrapped up and neither do they. We've lost the first game of a series before and come back and won two in a row. That's a mind-set that we are going to have. We're going to go out there tomorrow night, and leave it all out on the field and hopefully we're going to be able to beat these guys.

THE MODERATOR: Alex, a few comments about your outing, please.

ALEX LANGE: Nothing really much to say. It hurts to let your teammates down like that. That's what sucks. It's just disappointing. That's obviously not the result we were looking for, but it just hurts to let my teammates down, I know when they are counting on me, especially in the big games. Just sucks.

Q. What did it feel like going into that sixth inning?
ALEX LANGE: I mean, I felt fine. My arm was good. I felt like I had good stuff today. My breaking ball was good. I think my changeup was the best it's been all year. My command was really good, too. Just wasn't anticipating that happening, but that's baseball.

Q. Their lineup, was it what you expected, aggressive, free-swinging; was that what you expected or was it a little bit more than you expected?
ALEX LANGE: That's what we expected. I just didn't execute.

Q. Having to sit there for a lot of the previous innings with your team at-bat, did that take you out of rhythm somewhat, because that was a long at-bat for your team, and then you had to go back out there and try to get back in rhythm.
ALEX LANGE: What's your question?

Q. When you came back out, you didn't have a great inning, but you had to sit through your team's at-bat before that, a long at-bat; did it take you out of rhythm, having to sit that long?
ALEX LANGE: No, I mean, I sat last week through a 57-minute rain delay and a 30-minute inning in the second inning. It's not an excuse. I didn't execute. I wasn't good enough today and they beat me.

Q. Greg, when they went to Morrison, seemed like he really put the clamps down on things. What was he doing that made him so effective for those first two innings?
GREG DEICHMANN: I mean, you know, give credit to them. They threw, you know, their guys threw and they banged it around. But the guy -- that's their closer. That's their go-to guy. I guess he had some time and things that might have kept us off balance a little bit. But we were still putting the bat on him and stuff. We didn't get those timely hits when we needed them.

Q. Paul, have you made a decision on who will pitch tomorrow?
PAUL MAINIERI: Well, we'll see how Jared feels. If Poche' feels good, it will be him, but we'll wait and see how he feels tomorrow when he's playing catch.

Q. The hitting of Coastal Carolina, you said earlier in the week you were very impressed with their hitting. Did you think the fatigue was going to kick in, and the hitting was going to get to your pitching in the fifth and sixth inning?
PAUL MAINIERI: I'm not sure I quite understood, the fatigue?

Q. The fatigue factor; a little bit with your pitching.
PAUL MAINIERI: For our pitcher?

Q. Yes.
PAUL MAINIERI: I think Alex answered. I don't think he was really fatigued. He missed with a 2-2 breaking ball and then the kid fouled one off and then he walked him, and then we had an unfortunate passed ball and put the runner in scoring position and then their kid got a ground ball single up the middle; and after that they started to string some really good at-bats together.

They are a very good hitting team. We knew that going in. They have got a lot of veteran players that have played a lot of college baseball, and Alex was battling them hard and I thought he was doing great. And then it just, that one inning, I don't know that he was fatigued as much as -- he probably got fatigued as the inning was drawing on I would guess, but I don't think that's why they got to him initially. I think it just -- they beat him, you know, on a few plays, pitches, and that's the way baseball works sometimes.

Q. How do you feel about what transpired during that last play that potentially could have kept the game going?
PAUL MAINIERI: Well, our players are taught to hustle and never give up on anything. Obviously that didn't work out that way on the last one. So I'm sure nobody feels worse than Jordan.

Q. If Jared does go tomorrow, he's a guy that's been here three years, I'm sure -- what's your confidence level in him going out there?
ALEX LANGE: It's the same as it's been all year. There's a reason why he's won 27 games here. He goes out there, he's a competitor and he battles. Looking for him to get us back on the right track tomorrow.

Q. You've compared this team quite a bit to 2008. Does this feel at all like Cal Irvine?
PAUL MAINIERI: I'm glad you brought that one up, thanks. I was trying to give some examples to the team after the game when we lost the first game of the series and came back and won two. I don't know why I didn't remember to bring that one up.

We are used to playing tough three-game series' in the SEC every weekend, and sometimes you win the opening game and sometimes you don't, but you have to treat every game individually. In this particular case, obviously winning the series allows you to continue your season, whereas during the regular season, not necessarily that way.

Our backs are against the wall. There's no hiding that fact. We know that. But we're giving the ball to a kid we have a lot of confidence in, and I know our kids are going to be tough-minded. They are going to go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and know that we have a tough ballgame and they are going to be ready to play. If we can find a way to win tomorrow, then all of a sudden, we're even and you know, one game for the marbles, and I like our chances.

Q. Offense kind of scuffled the last two games of the regionals. Did you like the at-bats you put together? You scored eight runs and had 11 hits.
PAUL MAINIERI: I've been looking around the country and I've been seeing a lot of these host teams have lost, and I've watched a lot of the games, and a lot of them looked really tight, really nervous. I didn't think our guys looked that way at all tonight. I thought they played very loose, very confident, very aggressive. I thought they played really well.

And obviously so did Coastal Carolina. And it was really a good ballgame. The sixth inning, they got to Alex a little bit. The seventh inning, they hit a couple of home runs, but the hits were almost even. I think the difference was they hit three home runs; we hit one, and I think they took advantage of a few scoring opportunities.

But overall, I thought our guys really competed hard at the plate. They hustled most of the time on defense. I thought Alex was pitching tremendous ball until the sixth inning, and obviously you know, we didn't -- Parker did a good job out of the bullpen but after that we didn't really have an outstanding performance out of the bullpen and the game kind of got away from us.

Wish we could have kept it close. I thought we did a good job against their closer. Probably forced him to throw 60 pitches. I don't know how many exactly he threw. But we competed hard, and tonight they were just a little bit better than us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUPER REGIONALS: BATON ROUGE

June 11, 2016

Greg Deichmann

Alex Lange

Paul Mainieri