2025 MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 14, 2025

Dave Van Horn

Reese Robinett

Gabe Gaeckle

Arkansas Razorbacks

Postgame Press Conference

LSU - 4, Arkansas - 1

THE MODERATOR: Joining us are members of the Arkansas Razorbacks, head coach Dave Van Horn and student-athletes Gabe Gaeckle and Reese Robinett.

DAVE VAN HORN: I thought as far as -- I thought our pitching was incredible. Obviously Anderson and Shores did a tremendous job. And they finished it up with Evans in the ninth.

We had a couple of chances to score some runs and we didn't. Reese hit a home run and got us kind of feeling pretty good, down 3-1. We just needed to score the next inning, but we didn't.

Really it boiled down to Anderson. He didn't give us anything. He's 11-1 because he's really good. That's all I've got.

Q. Gabe, since you moved into the bullpen after that Texas A&M series, 32 innings, seven earned, ERA of 1.97. Today, outstanding outing. Relatively full strength pitching staff heading into the upcoming four games possibly for Arkansas. Can you just make a statement on your mentality coming out of the bullpen compared to starting games and what that does for the team going forward?

GABE GAECKLE: Yeah, I think it's the same mentality. Just going out there, pitching. I just wanted to eat up some innings to save some guys because we've got a lot of games ahead of us. Same mentality. We'll be back here in a few days.

Q. Reese, I know you hit the home run, but what was the conversation in the dugout? What was Kade Anderson doing to kind of make it a difficult night for the offense?

REESE ROBINETT: Yeah, he's a great pitcher. He's mixing well, keeping our hitters off balance. We had to stick with an approach and stay with it and try to put your best swing on it.

Q. Gabe, a career-best outing for you. What was it about just with Zach coming out quicker and it being a quicker call to you, how is that different tonight compared to games past, the times you came out of the bullpen?

GABE GAECKLE: Like I said, same mentality. It was a little quicker turnaround. But you've just got to be ready whenever.

Q. Gabe, it's obviously we've had a bunch of low-scoring games. Does it feel different pitching as a pitcher in this ballpark? Your first time here, can you get a sense of how the game's going to go on the mound?

GABE GAECKLE: Yeah, it definitely feels different. A lot more fans and we're playing for something pretty important. So there's a little bit of a difference.

Q. Dave, what went into lifting Root there in the second? Was it a stuff situation? Kind of walk us through that decision?

DAVE VAN HORN: To me, it was a hard decision. I had to make a decision. Anderson looked really good. Seems like we weren't getting good swings off him. We were already down three runs.

They had, I think, Frey coming up, who's hitting over .400 against left-handers. And I just didn't feel like we could let them score anymore. I had a great pitcher in the bullpen who was hot. We got him up because we saw what we saw -- two walks, a hit-by pitch, a hit or two -- and the game was about to get out of hand.

Yeah, it's early, but the wind's blowing in. It's going to be tough to hit it over anybody's head. Scoring a lot of runs against Anderson to me wasn't something that was going to happen.

I hated to do it, but I just felt like it was the right decision. And I'll stand by it. It was the right decision.

Q. How critical were those two walks there in that inning from Root, especially Curiel gets ahead 0-2 and can't put him away?

DAVE VAN HORN: It's tough, unless you get out of it. And he didn't. Gave up a hit after that. Maybe one or two runs, but that third run, that was pretty tough. You're thinking he'd already thrown 20-some pitches that inning, 25, upper 20s, I'm not sure what.

Yeah, just the conditions and who we're facing and who's on the mound, it made those two walks look big, and they were.

Q. Gabe was your opening day starter this season. Today was his longest outing of the year and it came out of the bullpen. Is it reassuring to go out there see him pitch at his best on the biggest stage?

DAVE VAN HORN: It is. He threw 90 pitches. I think he struck out 10 guys. I'm not sure exactly. Our team, we struck out 16.

I thought the pitchers did a good job just moving it around a little bit. Gibler made the mistake 0-2, It was supposed to be in the dirt and probably gets a punch-out. And Gaeckle doesn't give up any runs, because that was his run out there.

He pitched great. He did everything we were hoping he would do, held down a pretty good lineup and gave us a chance to chip away and get back in, but their staff didn't let us.

Q. What was the feeling in the dugout after LSU gets on you early 3-0 and uses small ball to do it?

DAVE VAN HORN: The feeling was we still have seven innings to go or actually eight because I think it was the top of the second. We had eight at-bats. So, we were still in it 3-0, not a problem. We can score three real quick.

Maybe not tonight with the way they pitched or the way the wind was blowing, but it can happen. I think we were just trying to chip away.

Now you start getting into the fifth, sixth inning and you start getting concerned. And Reese hit a home run and still nobody out. That would have been big. I think we had another inning where we had the lead-off man on. He gets to second on a wild pitch and we don't score him.

Thomas can't hit a ball any harder to center field but that's the breaks of the game.

But the mood was confident. And it's one game. Now we put ourselves in a hole that we've got to dig ourselves out of.

Q. Obviously this is not your first rodeo in Omaha, but given your past experiences, how are you approaching going forward being in the losers' bracket right away?

DAVE VAN HORN: Obviously we need to move on from this one and get over it and not think too far down the road. We've just got to take care of business on Monday. We need to play good Monday because if we don't there's no Tuesday.

If we can get through Monday, we've got Tuesday. We've got to do the same thing.

You just can't get all uptight about it. These guys, they've come back and won games. They've done some great things this year.

So that's what I told them. We've got a bullpen full of pitchers. We've got a bunch of hitters that can hit. They didn't have a good night. We need to move on and get ready for Monday.

Q. You've seen Kade Anderson twice in just over a month. What is it about him from your perspective that makes him such a special pitcher?

DAVE VAN HORN: He really just doesn't leave the ball over the middle of the plate. Even his misses are close. He missed a lot of pitches away to righties that you could tell he was a little frustrated that it was that tight. Changes speeds just enough. The first time we faced him, he struck us out more, but we hit him harder. When we hit it, we hit it hard, and we scored some runs on him.

Tonight, when we hit it, we didn't hit it real hard most of the time. He's a really good pitcher, polished. I think he's going to continue to just get a lot better as he gets bigger and stronger. You can just see the projection there.

Q. Are you planning on starting Wood on Monday?

DAVE VAN HORN: That would be the plan right now. But I'll be honest with you, it could change when we look at this.