2025 MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 15, 2025

Kevin Schnall

Colby Thorndyke

Jacob Morrison

Dean Minos

Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Postgame Press Conference

Coastal Carolina - 6, Oregon State - 2

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coastal Carolina.

KEVIN SCHNALL: Number one, happy Father's Day to everyone. I wouldn't be in this profession if it wasn't for the influence from my dad.

And for us to play like that on this stage, pretty darn remarkable. These guys were unbelievable tonight. Jacob Morrison, winner's win. It's absolutely criminal for a publication not to have that guy identified as an All-American.

Q. Jacob, you've been excellent all season long. You went out there and shoved on the biggest stage. 600 days missed of game time due to injury and rehab. Is this what you envisioned?

JACOB MORRISON: Yeah, absolutely. I envisioned dominance. I worked really hard in the offseason. I had the best staff around me to equip me to come back from injury and be this good.

It's very fulfilling to be able to play at this high of a level. I do not take it for granted, the ability to even throw the baseball every day. I'm extremely blessed by that.

Q. Jacob, what's it like throwing with Bodine behind the plate? How much does he do for you to be able to do what you're able to do?

JACOB MORRISON: He's the best catcher in the country. I think everybody has seen the graphic now. It's ridiculous. The strike zone is bigger. He throws every runner -- I'm not a quick person at the plate, I know that -- but he throws out every runner. It's very calming knowing he's back there every time.

Q. You gave up the home run and even a couple more deep flies right after that. What changed from that point on because they really did very little against you after that point?

JACOB MORRISON: I think I just kind of settled in. I don't know if I was nervous the first time through the order. But after that I felt really good. It was awesome to see really long fly balls be caught in right and left field. I'm going to really enjoy seeing that again. I felt I settled in and was very confident after that.

Q. Jacob, the Oregon State guys were kind of marvelling at how well you mixed speeds, locations, pitches, everything. At what point did you really develop that kind of mastery, your ability to mix and keep hitters off balance as well as you do? You made a big jump from your last full season to this year. What was the key to that kind of development?

JACOB MORRISON: I've always been a big strike thrower. Like, my freshman year, I threw a ton of strikes but I had a hard time keeping the ball out of the middle of the plate. That was a big thing, not only in my rehab last year, but even in freshman year development, throwing pitches where I want. I think it's pretty awesome to do that type of stuff.

Q. Jacob, not only Teel Nation but you come from a state that is pretty under-represented in Division I baseball. How does it feel knowing that, one, you've got all the Teel down the first-base sideline and another state behind you as well?

JACOB MORRISON: Flushing, Michigan is the greatest community ever. I'm extremely blessed to grow up in that environment. I can't tell you how many people back home texted me about it -- my tennis coach, my high school baseball coach is here and he's extremely fired up. It's awesome to have those people behind me. They're the best people in the world. I don't take them for granted at all.

Q. Colby and Dean, going out there in this big stage, you guys performed defensively and offensively, how do you guys kind of calm it down and continue the streak you guys are on?

DEAN MINOS: It's what we do every day. We practice just as hard as we play. And just to go out on the stage, doesn't matter who we're playing in front of or who is in the other dugout. That's something we do every day and we just go out and execute.

COLBY THORNDYKE: We always preach just playing baseball the right way. That's what we're about. We play the right way. When you've got a guy like Jacob Morrison on the mound, it's like stress-free just playing defense behind him because you know you've got one of the best pitchers if not the best pitcher in the country. And it's very easy playing behind somebody like that.

Q. Colby, first inning, biggest hit in the game probably, you against a really tough lefty. How comfortable do you generally feel against left-handers? And what were you trying to do with that at-bat?

COLBY THORNDYKE: I think we had a hit-by-pitch that maybe didn't go our way, which became two outs with bases loaded. There's been a few situations I've came in in that situation a few times earlier in the season and didn't get it done.

I knew if I would just get us one run on the board any way possible with Jacob on the mound, it would really dump some momentum in our dugout.

As far as lefty on left, that's just another pitcher to me. I stayed to my approach and put a good pitch on it. That's what I did and that's what happened.

Q. Dean and Colby, in this big of a ballpark when the wind is blowing like this, what are the keys offensively to being successful?

COLBY THORNDYKE: I think it's been the same thing all year for us. We approach launch angle between 10 and 30 degrees. Even in BP, our coach is on us, on us, on us.

We're not swinging to get the ball out of the yard. But if you square up and hit it the correct way between 10 and 30 launch angle, it will take care of itself. We stick to our approach that we've been with daily all season long, and we're not going to change.

DEAN MINOS: Absolutely. I echo that. I think everything happens before you even go to swing. So you get up early and your swing just takes over. And we'll hit the angles that we practice every day.

Q. What have you seen from Jacob in terms of his development and how far he's come to get to this point with what we saw tonight?

KEVIN SCHNALL: Well, his freshman year, we could see that this guy was going to be a slam dunk, Friday night starter. And unfortunately he had the injury.

What you see from Jacob, he's mature, he's a winner, he's extremely competitive. He's hard working. He's 6'8". He's got a great arm. He's a 3.5-plus student. When you say, how do you want your son to be like, this is the ultimate individual.

Q. How much confidence, how good did it feel with Colby getting that big hit and all of a sudden being staked to a 3-0 lead knowing you have Morrison going tonight?

KEVIN SCHNALL: We capitalized on a couple of mistakes. We won on a couple of frees and we capitalized on a couple of mistakes. As they said, ball four didn't go our way with the potential hit-by-pitch. There's two games in a row now we get a hit-by-pitch called against us. I don't know how many we've had in 60-plus games. Maybe one or two all year. Now two in two games.

I don't want to get into the mechanics of it, but when you take a swing, your lead elbow actually works up, not down. And his lead elbow is working up and the ball actually didn't even hit the elbow. Again, that's for another conversation.

But ultimately that was a massive two-out double, bases-clearing double. What did that provide us? That got us the score first, which is really critical in our program, and a big inning with one swing of the bat.

And to do that in the first, I think it gave us a lot of confidence, obviously, moving forward, especially with Jacob Morrison on the mound. After he gives up the home run in the third, he retires 16 straight.

Q. From the outside looking in, it looks like this team's got a huge chip on their shoulder. What is the, I guess, motivation? Is there any added, needed motivation entering this game knowing that, hey, you guys may have had a resumé to be a top eight team in this NCAA Tournament this year, that was the No. 8 seed, or is it just an everyday thing, you guys are attacking, playing every single pitch?

KEVIN SCHNALL: I'm not going to play committee member. They gave us the 13 seed; we owned it, moved on, and did it the hard way. We had to win at home, which was great. We had to go to Auburn, win at Auburn.

So I'm not worried about exactly what seed we are. At the end of the day, I don't know if it's a chip. These guys are grinders. These guy's care level is extremely high, and these guys are very competitive.

Q. Wonder if you could shed some light on how Jacob got from Michigan to Coastal Carolina. Do you remember when you guys first kind of discovered him? And I imagine the 6'8" guy probably stood out right away, but just about that recruiting process, kind of curious.

KEVIN SCHNALL: I'll never forget. I won't mention the other coach's name, but I was sitting at a game in Georgia watching Jacob pitch, and Jacob made a play off the mound. He's 6'8". He made a play off the mound. A bunt, swing and bunt, and I said, "I'm all in."

I was worried about the coach next to me. They didn't do anything with him. We're fortunate he's a Chanticleer.

Q. How big of an advantage is it to have the two days off; you're in the winners' bracket still, somebody has to beat you twice, you're very deep in pitching, how good do you feel about where you are right now with what you need to do to move on?

KEVIN SCHNALL: As I say, there's no bad days in Omaha. We just extended our stay. Two days off is tremendous. But it doesn't assure you anything. You think about 2016. TCU was in the same exact boat, and we beat them twice. So it doesn't assure you anything, but it does give us an opportunity to recover, regroup, as you mentioned.

It gives us an opportunity to rest some arms. But we've got to keep working. We've got a practice lined up tomorrow. We've got to keep working on some little things to continue to get better if we want to continue to play.

Q. You just mentioned 2016. Looking holistically at the program, when you were -- maybe in 2016 you guys knew that you had the opportunity to win a national championship all along. But looking at that perspective of maybe everybody else in the other dugout doesn't think that, how does that change when now you're 2-0, one win away from the national championship series and you kind of have a target on your back, and how has this team done so well with handling that opportunity?

KEVIN SCHNALL: Head down, humble and hungry. It's that simple. Keep our head down. We're humble, and we're very hungry, and we love being around each other.