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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

May 21, 2018

Mike Martin

Durham, North Carolina

MIKE MARTIN: Well, obviously we're excited to be participating in the tournament. It's always fun to come up to North Carolina and compete. Just been a year in which we've had our ups and downs, but fortunately we're playing very well right now. The last series with North Carolina State was just about as good as it gets. It was extremely exciting. Pitching on both sides was very good. Very few errors were made in the series. It was a great way to spend a weekend watching very good college baseball.

Q. Virginia has a lot of lefties in the lineup. I think especially this past weekend they were going the first three guys in their order were all lefties and a lot of their capable hitters are lefties. How does that play into maybe how you game plan for them tomorrow? Obviously Drew will probably be starting, so how does that kind of go into what your plan is for that game?
MIKE MARTIN: First of all, I'd like to apologize. We have not made up our minds on who is going to start, but Drew Parrish will not start tomorrow. That's the only thing that I can tell you right now. Yeah, Drew does not ever go on four days' rest, and we're not going to start that now.

We do have a left-hander that would be available, and that's Austin Pollock. Austin pitched one inning against North Carolina State. We also have a right-hander that could be available in CJ Van Eyk. But we know how talented Virginia is, and we just know that we've got to do a lot of discussing before we figure out who's going to start.

Q. And then overall, is it almost weird to go into this tournament and you see Virginia as the 10 seed and what that kind of says about how tough it is to really have the same success that you've had at this level of college baseball?
MIKE MARTIN: You know, I can honestly say in all my years, this is the strongest year for college baseball that I've ever seen. All over the country you have outstanding teams, and there are 12 very good teams in this conference tournament. When you look at over the SEC, the Big 12, the Pac-10, it's very, very interesting that baseball has exceeded a lot of people's expectations. I'm saying this point blank: This is a great commodity, this game of college baseball. There are outstanding athletes, outstanding coaches, and it is a great venue to be involved in.

Q. Just wanted to ask you about your recent success that you've had in the ACC Tournament. You've won two of the last three. You were in the final for the other one. Just what do you think has led to your team's success in this type of environment?
MIKE MARTIN: Gosh, I wish I had an answer that made any sense. A lot of times you just happen to get a couple of lucky breaks, whether it's the other team was not able to use a certain pitcher that they wanted to use because he was used the weekend before. Last year, for an example, we did not use our third starter because of a rain-out when the tournament was played at Louisville, which enabled us to start the tournament with our third starter, and that third starter was Cole Sands, and Cole pitched very well, and then we had a day off if I'm not mistaken, and then we turned around and used our No. 1 starter, which happened to be Tyler Holton, and we were playing, of course, a very good Louisville team.

Things just happened to fall into place. And like anything else in athletics, you've got to have a little luck. I think you have to attribute that to not a little luck, a lot of luck for us.

Q. With Parrish not starting tomorrow, it's safe to assume that he will start on Friday, considering that's his normal starting spot?
MIKE MARTIN: Yes, sir, he will pitch on Friday.

Q. Congratulations on winning a lot of games in the whole NCAA baseball. With all the wins that you've had over your career since the '80s, is there one that you will always remember, that wow, I was part of that win and it was part of my career?
MIKE MARTIN: Well, the fact that it's been so many, it's hard to separate many of them. But I think any time you look back on a career as long as mine has been, you look back to the first game that you participated in as your first win, and that is something that I will always remember, and that one was at the University of Miami in 1980. I can tell you anything you want to know about it, but I can't tell you what I ate for breakfast.

Q. What do you guys got to do to win the championship in Durham, because I know the last time you were there it was a long day for the championship game because it was like six rain delays.
MIKE MARTIN: Oh, man. You're right about that long day. You might as well say day and night. Yeah, the rain was not nice to us at all.

I just think to win a tournament of this nature in which you have so many good clubs, a lot of things just have to go your way. You give a club a couple of extra outs, you go get beat. It's just a situation where it's going to be about pitching and defense as much as anything. There's so many good athletes on every club.

If you gave me six teams to pick, I could very easily lose because somebody else would (indiscernible), and I mean that sincerely. Any of 12 teams can win this thing.

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