2025 MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 12, 2025

Mitch Canham

Wilson Weber

Dax Whitney

Gavin Turley

Oregon State Beavers

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Oregon State head coach Mitch Canham and student-athletes Gavin Turley, Wilson Weber and Dax Whitney.

MITCH CANHAM: I'm incredibly excited for the opportunity for these guys to go out and inspire the world and continue the story that they've created throughout the entirety of this year. It's such a blessing.

It's been, I think, when others look at the difficulty and the hardship that a lot of people can perceive with the scheduling and the road games and even through the postseason -- some guys maybe not having the start that they wanted, but the growth that has happened.

It says in our clubhouse, right when you walk in, "Growing our family of champions in all that we do." And I think of growth. That's what these guys have done throughout the entirety of the year, on the field and off the field as men; family, how they've embraced one another and created a very tight knit brotherhood and will do anything for one another; champions in everything that we do.

Whatever is asked of them -- I've got Gavin Turley laying down bunts from time to time, and he's a power hitter because he will do anything it takes to become a champion and help the guys around him.

I've got Wilson Weber catching every single day and wants the ball and continuing to grow as a man and as a leader. It's just incredible to watch him go out and perform.

And up here on the stage, too, you've got Dax Whitney. I can go through all of our guys and give you a lengthy story on each and every one of them why I'm proud of them. A true freshman, taking the ball in any of the games and continuing to try to get better.

One of the biggest things I want to point out is -- with all this going on, with NIL, transfer portals, the amount of money that can be had in the draft and you name it -- these guys all chose to be at Oregon State. And that means a lot about who they are as men and where their values lay and how much they care about that place and that brotherhood.

It warms my heart that I get to go be a part of that and help out in any way I can. We have a coaching staff that loves these guys because of who they are and what they represent and how they go about their business.

We look at everything that's happened this year as a blessing, every road trip, every layover, delay, meal that doesn't show up, rough call here or there, knicks and dings with the bodies, bad haircuts, it's all part of the plan -- not looking at anyone on the stage. I'm just saying I've seen a few. (Laughter).

Q. Wilson and Gavin, seemed like the offense started to turn a little bit in Hawaii. With all you guys built as a team, it came together at once. Saw it in person. Felt palpable there. Gavin, speak about how you continued that going through the postseason.

WILSON WEBER: I wouldn't say there was one necessary thing that made us totally click, like, offensively it kind of happened towards the second half of the season. But just kind of comes down to having fun, enjoying and playing free and easy and just playing for each other. We kind of finally fully set on that and just kept doing it.

GAVIN TURLEY: Well said, Web. Going into the postseason it's, like, hey, we're going to leave it out there. Win or lose there's going to be no regrets. When you play like that, it's easy to go out there, play free and perform at your best.

Q. Gavin, 26 career RBI with Oregon State. That ties a Beaver record currently with the man sitting next to you, Coach Canham. Has there been any friendly jabbing back and forth between the two of you? Can you just describe the relationship that you have with Coach? And also, Coach, with the rest of the guys on the team?

GAVIN TURLEY: Not yet. No friendly jabbing yet. Will, though, for sure. But no the relationship is great. I'm sure there's nothing more than he would want to see me to break that record. But I had no clue about that. So, cool.

MITCH CANHAM: This guy breaks every record. Boz was here last year. I remember when Boz was taking his recruiting visit he took a picture of all the records on the board, and he goes -- I go what are you doing? He goes, I'm taking a picture to remind myself to break all of these.

Now, this guy's over here breaking home run records and RBI records. And you spend a couple of days with this guy and you realize he can do anything. He can communicate with the CEO of a major corporation or someone that is just hanging out at a bus stop that you never met.

Gavin's ability to be social and love other people, it's infectious. It makes all of us better people as well. Just finding that joy each and every day.

And I played at Oregon State before any of these guys were born, I think. They don't even know what Rosenblatt is. When I was coming out here, I was, like, yeah, Rosenblatt. And they're, like, what? Never mind.

For each of these guys up here the relationship -- it's like my son and my daughter, my relationship with each of them is a little bit different because they each have different interests. And it's knowing who they are, what their wants and dreams are, reading their body language. Also making sure that I'm not getting in the way and interfering with who they are as people.

My job is also, because there's for every mile of road there's two miles of ditch. My job is to make sure they have those guardrails on each side so they don't fall off, that they're going to get to their destination of greatness without falling off the road as quickly as possible.

I mean, it's expediting their development, and what we see here is Web chose to come back here and be a leader and take on the challenge and get uncomfortable and work on the things he needs to work on, and how strong of a Christian he is, and how he inspires other guys about going about the day to day.

He does everything right. For each of these guys, who have I had to come in -- see if we have honesty on the stage -- who have I had to call in, scold for doing anything wrong? No one? I only remember one time, I had a conversation with Dax about leading and going into it, but never scolding because they do the right thing.

GAVIN TURLEY: I missed class one time. Honesty.

MITCH CANHAM: I appreciate you doing that. But it's part of our thing is that if you're not doing the right thing there's consequences for it.

My expectations of turning in every assignment and giving it your best effort, my expectations of showing up at practice with great attitude. Our four pillars -- selfless, process doing the right thing and fun. There's different variations what those four words mean. But it's something I've talked a lot about. And our expectations are extremely high because people at Oregon State and the tradition of this program, it's way beyond any of us.

My title may say head coach but I'm a servant for this program and community. Some day I'll be gone and I want it to be in a better place than when I got here and those who gave to us before.

Some day these guys are going to look back and be one to pour into the next generation. They're already doing it right now.

After the game, the super regionals or even when everyone else was playing in a conference tournament, we scrimmaged seven innings on Friday and afterwards we brought everybody out on the field. We signed autographs for them.

These guys all stood on the third baseline and signed every autograph that came down there, even DeCremer and the guys at the end of the line trying to find a spot to sign on the ball. You were down there at the end, weren't you?

GAVIN TURLEY: Yeah, it was rough.

MITCH CANHAM: They stayed out there until everyone got an autograph and then spent time with them. And then we and played "Sandlot" on the Jumbotron. And a handful of the players stayed out there and watched movies with the kids.

In my mind these guys are superheroes. What type of superhero that's what we're building to be the best possible superhero we can be. But all around the world, why does Bazzana come to Oregon State? Why do kids from other parts of the country want to reach out and come to Oregon State? It's because they're seeing the stuff that these guys are doing right now.

And I really want more of the story to be out. I don't want walls around our clubhouse. I would like just pillars so people can see and understand what they went through in its entirety this year and how special it really is, because that was the prayer from the get-go. Let's make this thing so challenging, let's do something that no one else has ever done, and, like, gives them the opportunity to go out there and transform college athletics the truth of what young kids need to see is guys doing the right thing, caring about one another, handling the ups and downs the right way, not just getting up and downs but handling positivity, the positive things in a good way.

Celebration ends after super regional, everyone's excited. Didn't do anything stupid. Our focus is what do we have to do tomorrow what do we have to go focus on. I know their heads are in the right space while we're here.

Q. Your teammate, Aiva Arquette, how have you seen him come into this season? He's playing with a little bit of pressure because people are thinking he might get the first pick in the Major League Baseball draft. How have you seen him manage that pressure and acclimate to the team this year?

DAX WHITNEY: For me the dude shows more fire than anybody on the team. He really wants to win, and he couldn't care less about his draft stock or things like that. He's here because he wants to win and he's doing everything he can to win.

WILSON WEBER: Going off that, I don't think he feels that pressure because he wants to win and have fun with the guys. I feel like he's one of the best guys in the clubhouse to have fun with and goes about every day with positivity no matter how he's feeling.

I don't think he's had one bad year in the clubhouse for whatever reason. He's just a happy individual. I don't think he plays feeling that pressure. I think he just plays, has fun and wants to go out and win.

GAVIN TURLEY: I don't think Arquette knows what the word "pressure" is. It's fun to watch him in BP, too, because it will be pregame BP, and all of us as hitters, it might not look the best on any given day. But Arquette might roll over four times and gets out of the cage and, well, nothing, legit, nothing. It's like there's no pressure with that kid. It's honestly taught me a lot about how to go about my business.

Q. Could you comment on your thoughts, I'll ask this they're on the other side of the bracket, just about Murray state making it to the College World Series? Did you watch the end of their game on Monday? What are your thoughts about new blood being here?

DAX WHITNEY: I saw the game. I think it's cool what they've done. It's pretty special. They obviously earned the opportunity to be here. I don't think anybody should overlook them. We're not overlooking them. We're ready to play here. Pretty cool them being here.

WILSON WEBER: Same thing as Dax. It was cool to watch that game and see them making history for them. We're not overlooking them or anything. Exactly what Dax said.

GAVIN TURLEY: I love to see them here. It's not about who is the better team, it's about who is playing better on that given day. That's baseball.

Q. Looking at who you guys surround yourself with, starting with Coach Canham but Zak Taylor and Joey Wong, what's the value having them around, not just the regular season but in the postseason when they've won so much themselves?

DAX WHITNEY: They definitely have a lot of experience. They've poured that onto us a little bit, the knowledge they have and what to expect. You just know all of them love you. They're going to do anything they need to and can to help you. It's super nice to have that support system around us.

WILSON WEBER: For me, I'd say that's one of the reasons I chose Oregon State was them and who they are, not just as coaches but as men, what they're about and what they believe and how they live their lives.

That is important to have, but it's also the cherry on top that they're doing what they do at the coaching level of things with the experience they've had and how they run things on that side.

GAVIN TURLEY: For me it's a calming feeling knowing that I'm in the right hands, we're in the right hands and kind of being able to be guided so efficiently. It's phenomenal to have those guys in our corner.

Q. Any of the players, just talk a little bit about the road warrior mentality of this team and how you hope that will translate into something positive here in Omaha?

DAX WHITNEY: For me, I've been saying it all year, I think we're more prepared than anybody to go do this thing. We've been handling adversity all year. We welcome it all the time. So I think we're better trained than anybody in the country to go do this thing.

WILSON WEBER: For me, I'd say it just feels like coming into whatever yard we have this year and making it our house. I feel we'll do it pretty well here.

Also I was just telling somebody, somebody was asking me in the dugout after practice about the road games. I just see it as an opportunity to spend more time with the guys, kind of develop those relationships even more because even the layers that long or the bus that didn't show up on time or stuff like that, just sometimes you see it after the fact and you're like, oh, this kind of sucks, but it's more time getting there. Playing cards with the boys and just hotel time, too. I just saw it as a blessing this year.

GAVIN TURLEY: I think at one point we felt more comfortable on the road than we did at home. Coming back out here on the road, it's nothing new to us, which I think plays to an advantage for us.

Q. The addition of AJ this year coming out from Iowa Western, how does that boost you guys just the lineup and the team hitting as a whole?

WILSON WEBER: He's definitely special. He's done a really good job defensively at second base. It's like he's one of those guys you don't notice, which is a really good thing, just because you don't remember any errors. And even if there's a little mess-up, it doesn't affect him at all.

Same thing in the lineup, he's ready to go each day and he doesn't swing and miss much, he's going to put the ball in play and put pressure on whoever is out there.

GAVIN TURLEY: I think Singer is a great player on the field, but he's been a huge role off the field for us. I think that's where we've really seen his value is his personality, him being in the dugout and the kind of person he is is very uplifting for everyone.

Q. Dax, in Coach Canham's opening statement he didn't mention you by name, but you are one of those guys who did pass up on the draft just 11 months ago, and now you're playing in Omaha. Describe the feeling stepping out onto the field today?

DAX WHITNEY: This was my vision when I made that decision to come here. I really wanted to come here the whole time. It was more of like a, if I get lucky I'll go to the draft.

I wasn't planning on it. I was set on coming here. And this is exactly what I dreamed of. This is why I came here because I knew we were capable of it. And I know we're capable of going further than we are right now. That's why I came here.

Q. Like I asked the guys, six conferences, an independent in this field, Murray State being one of them. Could you comment a little bit on the diversity of the field, and, in particular, Murray State, just what they were able to do?

MITCH CANHAM: Sitting at the All-American committee meeting this morning and we were talking about just landscape of baseball and some of the programs out there and really what their head guy has done, just paying credit where it's due, it's incredible.

They're a great offense. And the work ethic that goes into that, the attitude that you have to have to go out and compete at a high level, I just respect the game being played well. I respect good competition.

And every team, once you start the postseason every team that's in there is there for a reason. And it just continues to excel each round. So being here in Omaha and having seven other teams that we're going to go up against, what a great opportunity.

And how cool -- I like studying my opponents. I love history. I love seeing how people continue to evolve and how they accomplish great things. For each of those teams here this year, I'm always curious what have they done to continue to develop, what are they doing -- you face a good base running team like Louisville who can really, really run.

Is it just speed or what are they doing? How are they studying the counts and when to run?

You've got teams like Coastal that have elite-level pitching. What are they doing? How are they doing it? I want to learn more about the game. I want to learn more about competition. So respecting your opponents is important.

And also just every time we've won or lost a game this year, I've learned a ton from breaking down the video and studying our opponents. How do they take pregame? I was talking to a friend of mine and he was talking about, hey, we don't really take in-and-out as often as we used to. I go, why is that?

When you're the visiting time you don't have a lot of time. Rather use the time to focus on recovery to make sure we're primed for nine innings of baseball. It made me think a little bit do we need to take in-and-out before every single game and do we need to do it the same way every single time?

And so each of these teams here, having played against UCLA just one game this year and knowing John for a long time, or seeing what a job that Chip's done at Arizona, these are all great competitors, great teams. And from the time the field was set until this thing is over and even beyond I'll be studying a lot of that.

I remember looking back and watching Arizona and Coastal play in '16 and doing that two years after watching them play, just studying the catchers a little bit.

So it's great to be a student of the game and great to have a lot of tough competitors out there.

I think what Murray State is doing is outstanding. Big time offense.

Q. Could you speak to the challenge that Louisville brings. You mentioned their stolen bases, they're going to pressure you guys on the bases, could you speak to that? And maybe think back to Oregon and how they challenged you and maybe how you grew from that series?

MITCH CANHAM: That series with Oregon, there's a handful of stolen bases that we had allowed. You just look at it rather than bury your head in the sand. It's like what can we do to get better here, whether it's our looks and our pick moves, some of our pick plays, and just recognizing tendencies that other teams are giving us, because giving up free bases is never something that we ever want to do. We need to be better at that. And we've gotten better at it as the season has gone on.

Every time something like that where we've struggled on the weekend, back to the drawing board, figure out how to get better.

Louisville has a lot of speed. They got a handful of guys, three guys over 30 bags, one guy is 51 for 52. There's real speed there. I've seen guys who are really quick to the plate and they still take bags off of them. I've seen guys have howitzers for arms behind the dish and they're still getting bags off of them.

I think it's good for the game. It's good for us because it continues to give you, okay, a 1.35, which is good to have a time to home plate as a pitcher, maybe now it's not that anymore. Maybe a 1.2 is necessary to shut down a run game.

It's also mixing looks. If you fall into a rhythm, other teams can pick that up. You can tell they've worked a lot on the bases as well as recruited a lot of speed. But also they've got a handful of guys up and down their lineup that are tremendous hitters that work the ball really well on top of the zone, bottom of the zone, inside, outside.

So that makes it quite a challenge, which is always welcomed for whoever is playing against them to prepare for their pitchers and make sure their guys are out there executing high-quality pitches, as well as I believe the guy they're starting first against us, he's got a big-time arm. He's got a lot of punch-outs too.

There's always stuff. And I feel like we've played a lot of great competition. The teams that can run, we played against teams that have really good arms. Iowa had a great set of arms as well.

What Gav said, who is on fire right now, who's hot, who's playing their best baseball, who is going to respond to failure, who is going to let 27,000 fans play into the equation of how they're performing as opposed to just focusing on the game and the joy that goes with it.

I know Louisville they do a lot of things really well. Watched a handful of their games already. Doing a bit a deeper of a dive on some of their hitters and situational stuff. You could tell they deserve the right to be here is how they've gone about their business. They've played a lot of really good teams. We've got to make sure we're ready to go out and compete.

Q. Can you speak about the impact that AJ has had on this team coming over from Iowa Western? And to that earlier question, following up on that, just having West Coast teams here. Arizona's coach, Chip Hale, mentioned the only way to defeat the SEC is to get here to Omaha. Can you speak of you, Arizona and UCLA getting here and how it shows more parity in college baseball?

MITCH CANHAM: First off, with AJ Singer, tremendous. I don't know how he's not going to be a Gold Glover. He's made one error all year. We see all that stuff. You watch him go out there and play, how he turns a double play, how he moves his feet. He's got 160-plus assists so he's ranging to a lot of balls as well.

How he turns the double play, he cuts and relays, you name it. He stays very involved in the game. He's present. He's done it each and every game.

And then the other part that no one sees is he taught a handful of our classroom sessions in the fall. He wanted to do it. I always open it up for guys, hey, who wants to teach and share some wisdom with the other guys or prepare on something you don't know.

And AJ did it multiple times, where he goes, hey, I'd like to present it to the group. And he comes to the office, presents to the coaches, does a practice round, then presents to the guys. I think his leadership, his calming nature, the fact that he wants to coach some day. He's expressed that.

And he has a vision where and what he wants to do as a coach. So it's like giving him opportunities to learn what that entails and how to become even more of a leader.

But he was extremely successful at Iowa Western and now he's extremely successful here as well. He enjoys and loves everything about that program when he was there and he's embraced very quickly and loved everything about what he's doing at Oregon State.

Tremendous young man. And he's going to be a great coach and a great player for a long time.

When it comes to the West Coast stuff -- I'm from the northwest -- and bringing pride back and having people understand how good baseball is out West is tremendous. I know that a lot of attention gets given with finances and players getting drafted and all this.

Not necessarily where the players played and got drafted from, but a lot of guys on the West Coast playing as freshmen and sophomores really, really good and maybe transferred, they're going to get drafted out there.

Did Paul Skenes get drafted because of where he was at or because he threw 100 miles an hour and he's really good? There's no doubt he continued to develop and all those other things. I'm not taking anything away from that. But I just think that the amount of high-quality players that come from the West Coast, and watching UCLA and Arizona and I'm thinking about Irvine and Santa Barbara and all the other schools throughout the West Coast that have tremendous talent are extremely well coached, is great baseball.

For kids that are on the West Coast, to be able to play in front of their families and continue to develop because it's not about getting drafted or anything like that, it's are you going to be ready or what's putting you in the best position to, A, make the most out of college, get your education and win a College World Series, but also going on and playing in the big leagues for a long time. Not just making an appearance or saying you played pro ball. It's making the most of your career and maximizing your potential.

I am biased. I see it all the time. We were down in Fullerton playing this year. I went out to a restaurant with some of the other coaches where Augie had his memorial service. It's like the Fullerton Bar and Grill, whatever, they've got ribs and pints and all that stuff. It was really cool to walk around and see the history of Fullerton baseball and what they did over the years. It's like little places like that as we go out and travel, I like learning about the history, especially of West Coast baseball. There's a lot of programs.

I remember one time I was going through the basement of Gill, our basketball coliseum, and clearing out a closet. I found a letter to Coach Casey from another college coach, from USC. The letter was written to Case talking about how awesome it was and how proud he was of Case for doing what he did getting Oregon State to the College World Series and winning it.

It was cool to see the respect that coaches have for one another especially on the West Coast.

Fierce competitors, up and down, and everyone wants to win and recruit hard and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like they still have a lot of respect for one another.

Coach Casey and Pat Murphy, when he was at Arizona State, fierce competitors against one another, and I now watch, talking to Case all the time, the relationship they have as friends now. And Murph doing it in the Big Leagues and Case being a part of all those things and mentoring people from across the country, I think it's pretty special.

I hope a lot of people see from our three teams, not just those three times but all the other teams up and down the West Coast that are doing phenomenal things and how difficult it is competing day in, day out against those teams because of how they're coached.

I have a lot of respect for Ben down at Irvine, and every time you go in there you know those guys aren't going to move their feet; they're going to get hit by pitches if you throw it inside. Brock does it at San Diego as well. Just nonstop. Highly competitive teams, well-coached.

Q. Can you speak a little bit about the importance of Beaver Nation this year especially the eagerness to go on the road travel with you guys and support you through all that?

MITCH CANHAM: I'd like to express my gratitude for Beaver Nation for not absolutely attacking me for not having a ton of home games but also believing and trusting in us that, as we said from the beginning, we'll do whatever it takes to play the most meaningful home games at the end of the year, maximize the amount of games in the postseason at home, too. Got a lot of home games from that.

But that environment in Corvallis the last couple of weeks, beautiful weather, extremely meaningful games to go on, and we've been in the postseason each of these years, but to break through and get back to Omaha and have the opportunity to go out and win it all, the environment was great.

We've got our head football coach sitting there going berserk the entirety of the game, everyone in my cul-de-sac, alumni showing up, Jacoby shows up, Darwin came back, a lot of other alums. The stadium sold out quick as ever.

People are trying to find ways on top of the parking garage to watch. It was amazing. And it was nonstop, like clapping, cheering, chanting.

Like I said, I typically am so focused on the game I don't hear or see what's going on in the crowd, I'm really wanting to pay attention to the players and what's happening in the game. But I took a minute and had to be like this is absolutely amazing. And just the passion. Walking around town before or after the games, just to see the joy people had.

In my mind, that's what's important for us as coaches and student-athletes. Part of being at the Oregon State Athletic Department, when I see businesses around town, athletics can help our community. If we're successful, people have smiles on their face, they're out and about, they're eating, they're sharing, and it keeps businesses open.

I think that we have a responsibility to do the right thing and go out and compete and bring joy to our fan base because it also bolsters our community.

My daughter, she's so proud of being a Beaver. She wears Oregon State stuff each and every day. She told me she didn't like the color of my eyes because they're green. They're hazel.

She's such a die-hard Beaver fan. And there's all the other kids in the community across the country that believe in those things, too. It's much more than just sport. And our fan base, I know there's going to be a ton of orange and black here. There's 4,000 of them that go down to Surprise with us week one of every year. So for our guys to experience that from the get-go.

When we went down to Surprise -- I love seeing it. Our guys come out of the dugout, they turn around after the Anthem, see all the orange and black and all the newbies to the program, turn around and see that, I'm like, there it is. They're going to be with you all year. They're going to be with you the rest of your life. They love you. They want to see you go out and be successful. They're with you through the good and the bad.

I've had a lot of other coaches come in and go, wow, it's really like this out here, huh? Hearing coaches that are coming from the East Coast. Butch Thompson said that when he came in a couple of years. Link said it when he was here -- wow, this is pretty special. There's no doubt about it. That's why I wish everyone could live it for a little bit of time.