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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 17, 2017

Omaha, Nebraska

Oregon State - 6, Cal State Fullerton - 5

THE MODERATOR: We'll have an overview from Coach Vanderhook, and then we'll open it up for players. Rick, please give us an overview.

COACH VANDERHOOK: That was a good game. They're really good. And I'm stupid. I outthought myself. Eastman was on a normal rest. We had a healthy lead. At that point, I figured let's turn it over to the best guy, and definitely outthought myself. Probably would do it different again. And I let them get back in the game, and you don't do that to good teams. When you have them down, you keep them down, and we didn't do that. We gave them momentum, and they took advantage of it. That's why they've only lost four games.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up now for questions to the student-athletes. Please wait for a mic.

Q. To Timmy, I guess. You put some good at bats together against Thompson. He wasn't getting anything by you guys, even when you weren't barrelling it up, you were fouling it off. What was, I guess, the game plan as far as what you were seeing out of him tonight, and how well did you think you executed it?
TIMMY RICHARDS: We knew that guy was a good pitcher coming into today. We knew he was going to throw the fastball, and we were trying to take our best swings with that fastball. I think we stayed with it pretty well. They brought in a lefty. Started bouncing around, fastball flying a little bit more, and started getting us off our playing.

When we were facing Thompson, we were locked in, stuck with that fastball, and we were able to get some good swings off.

Q. That ball, looked like you were a little late on it, but I guess you were still trying to pull it to left center. How good did it feel? Did you think you were late on it?
TIMMY RICHARDS: No, 3-1 count. Any time you go up there to take the first four pitches, you kind of get your timing down. I felt like I was right on top of that. I don't think I could have taken a better swing to that ball.

Q. For both of you guys, it seemed like you were able to work a lot of counts early in the game. Then when Mulholland came in, seemed like a lot of shorter at-bats. Did you guys feel like you got out of your offensive approach a little bit?
THE MODERATOR: Chris begin, please.

CHRIS HUDGINS: I feel like we didn't have a game plan. We were guessing back and forth which we're going to fit on off-speed or fastball and didn't really have a clear plan against the lefty.

TIMMY RICHARDS: Like I said, he started bouncing around a little bit more with that slider/fastball or slider/curveball, whatever you want to call it. It was pretty slow. He made the fastball a little bit faster. So I started guessing a little bit. They started scoring runs, and we started speeding up ourselves. So we know what to do next time.

Q. When you see Thompson's low 90s, Mulholland's kind of mid-80s, Rasmussen high to mid-90s, how jarring was it to have to kind of deal with pitchers who were throwing different type of heat and different type of speeds? Like how hard was it to catch up today?
THE MODERATOR: Who do you want?

Q. Either player is fine.
THE MODERATOR: Chris?

CHRIS HUDGINS: I just feel like using your eyes and being able to adjust to the speeds. It's called an eye test, and you want to just wait back on the slower guys and get your foot down early for the faster ones.

THE MODERATOR: Any more questions? No more questions for the student-athletes? Okay. Guys, you are excused. Thank you. We'll see you on Monday. Rick, now questions for you.

COACH VANDERHOOK: Shoot. I thought I was done. Nobody wanted to ask me anything. I thought I got out of here easy.

THE MODERATOR: No, not yet.

Q. What was the thought process of bringing Eastman into the game to try to keep the lead up?
COACH VANDERHOOK: When you play Saturday, if you win, you know you're going to play on Wednesday. So you're off Sunday, you're off Tuesday. He's our best guy. For me, he's one of the best guys here, and I didn't want to get beat twice and not have my best guy pitch. He was on normal good rest.

So, you know, Seabold was -- he was battling, but he was at 97 pitches. Didn't have a 1-2-3 inning. Everything was stressful every inning. He got out of it, but I figured let's roll. We'll go with him, with Eastman for two, three, and then go to Conine and close it out. Obviously, it didn't work. But that was the thought process.

Q. Coach, it seemed like, obviously, you were in control, but you look up at the end, and I think you got outhit like 11-3 or something. What was your overall impression of your offense today?
COACH VANDERHOOK: When we had guys on, we hit. We had a three-run home run with two guys on. We had a two-run base hit with two outs with two guys on. Taylor got one to get that going as it went. We didn't get anybody on. As I told the guys, Colton had a rough outing. We were out there for like 45 pitches. I said it felt like you were out there for like two hours. And we come up in seven pitches, and we're back on the field again with the 7, 8, and 9 guys who could have grinded it a little more and at least let us catch our breath. We never caught our breath.

When Mulholland came in, it was like we were out on defense for 25 minutes and in the dugout for two and out on defense, and it wears on you. We kept them out on defense early, and it wore on them a little bit as it went, but they're tough outs. I mean, how many pitches did we throw? It felt like 7,000.

(Laughter.)

176 pitches. That's a lot of pitches in eight innings that you're throwing. So they kept us out there, and then at the end, Blake got flat, and they can hit. They can really use the middle of the field. I mean, that's -- they whooped our ass.

Q. Coach, I think you just kind of answered it, but was there any moment at all, even with the four-run lead, that you felt comfortable today?
COACH VANDERHOOK: Well, you're not supposed to feel comfortable. I felt comfortable when I gave the ball to Colton to come in and pitch, and then I think he promptly threw like three strikes to five hitters, got a pop-up, a sac fly, and then walked another guy. It was just enough. I tried to give him long enough, he's earned it, to get himself out of it, but he couldn't, and we paid the price for it.

Q. Coach, obviously, you guys have battled through a lot of adversity this year with injuries and playing on the road throughout the postseason to dropping that first game to Long Beach, and you guys have responded every step of the way. How do you feel about your team and the resiliency and the way they're going to approach this going forward?
COACH VANDERHOOK: We've lost a lot of first games and won a lot of second games. I wish we were playing tomorrow. I wish we didn't have a day off. They'd like to get right back on the horse, but we don't get to do that. We'll come back and see what happens on Monday, see who we play. We don't even know that yet. We know who we're going to pitch, so we're good in that spot. And the bullpen will be good. Still got Pabich down there, still got Velasquez down there. We've got enough to go play a nine-inning game, and we'll hopefully make a couple of adjustments. We had five hits our last two games. We had two at Long Beach, and we had three today.

But as long as hits produce runs, you have a chance.

THE MODERATOR: Any more questions for Coach? Okay, Rick, thank you. We'll see you Monday.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 17, 2017

Rick Vanderhook

Chris Hudgins

Timmy Richards