2025 MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

June 17, 2025

Mitch Canham

Aiva Arquette

Gavin Turley

Jacob Krieg

Oregon State Beavers

Postgame Press Conference

Louisville - 7, Oregon State - 6

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Oregon State head coach Mitch Canham and student-athletes Aiva Arquette, Gavin Turley and Jacob Krieg.

MITCH CANHAM: I'm incredibly proud. As I told them, it's a small fraction of what that word means, how I feel about of these guys. This entire group, the entirety of the year they shouldn't be looking down at the ground; their head should be held high.

They inspired not only myself and their teammates, but I think the world on how they went about it. And the more people around these guys, you know, the better they feel about themselves in life. And it's absolutely incredible.

And to see what their capabilities are day in, day out, I don't think anyone was surprised that they put on a late-inning surge right there and find ways to make the game just wild.

But they got real heart. And as I said, I believe they're men. I believe they've found that out about themselves this year. It's a huge part why you go to college, to go out and compete and to grow and to become a man. And that's something that I think each and every one of those guys in the clubhouse has become, stronger. They took on so much.

I'm so grateful for everything we went through, grateful for the staff, our student managers, the administration. Oregon State and everyone whoever wore orange and black who rooted on the Beavs, it's incredible. And it's the continual hunger that we have and understanding for all those guys that are going to be back, what this place really means, and we have the capability of going out and doing amazing things.

I think we learned a lot about ourselves. Looking at the guys up here on the stage, Aiva Arquette chose to come here and push himself harder than he's ever pushed himself before and bring joy to other people and take on the world with these guys and become a brother.

I watched Jacob Krieg over the last three years transform himself to just being a real juggernaut, a man, someone who not only launches balls into the stands but continues to pick himself up when times are hard. And that's something that each of us need and we have someone to look at to inspire us to be better.

I look at Gavin Turley, who has loved this place through and through, even before he got here and left his mark. And I know each of these guys are going to continue to impact Oregon State and our future student-athletes and so many other people around the world for years to come, beyond when they leave this world.

It's just inspiring to see how they go about their stuff with everything that they do -- growing our family of champions and all that we do and they did that.

Q. I know this is kind of a big-picture question and your season just ended, what are you proudest of in terms of how you guys endured all the road trips including this here at the College World Series?

GAVIN TURLEY: I'd say I'm proud how we came together, especially with starting off knowing that it's an independent schedule and having to fight a battle that no one's ever fought before.

Everyone kind of just faced it head on and we all kind of came together that way. And it created a really tight group. That's what I take away most from this year.

JACOB KRIEG: The same thing that Gavin said, the tough times brought us together. And we just had fun the whole year.

AIVA ARQUETTE: I'm just proud of the brotherhood we assembled on this journey. What a season we had, what a run. I'm grateful just to be part of this program and just what a brotherhood.

Q. Aiva, when you entered the portal, is this how you envisioned this year to play out?

AIVA ARQUETTE: To win a national championship, I envisioned. But, yeah, I wanted to make it to Omaha. I wanted to win. We didn't do that today, but we did, we won. That's all I can ask for. Great teammates, great coaches. All I can ever ask for.

Q. Jacob and Gavin, three years now, I've had the wonderful opportunity to cover you guys and watch you grow as leaders, men, ball players. Could you talk about what it means to be part of Beaver Nation out there and Oregon State.

GAVIN TURLEY: I don't think a lot of people understand how kind of deep this program runs, but living up in Corvallis and seeing the people involved, it's a lifelong involvement.

I didn't necessarily realize that when I first showed up. But now being here for three years and seeing the people that come back and seeing the people that are involved and loving the program and consistently pouring into it, that's the one thing I'm going to take away.

JACOB KRIEG: Yeah, to play Beaver baseball is something special. The community always has your back. It makes me think I don't think I'd want to be anywhere else but here.

Q. I would like to actually tail on one of the transfer portal questions for Aiva. Could you expand on how Mitch and the coaching staff first approached you? Because it was a little bit of an unknown with the independent scheduling, and you still decided to commit and play for the Beavers.

AIVA ARQUETTE: Yeah, they had a plan already made. They discussed it with me. And they showed me what the plan was for the schedule. And it's Beaver baseball. It's a dominant program, especially on the West Coast and the whole country.

But I just wanted to be part of something special. I never looked back. I'm glad I made the choice.

Q. Obviously with the difficulties of running an independent schedule this year and all the road trips, how do you take this year and just help with it next year and into the future?

MITCH CANHAM: Difficult for who?

Q. For how the team (indiscernible), all the road trips --

MITCH CANHAM: I don't think putting it together was difficult. Talking about baseball and making phone calls. Did it take a lot of time and could it be frustrating from time to time trying to get all the puzzle pieces to fit? Sure.

But you ask why Oregon State, have you been around the program for a while? You could see real quick this place is amazing, top to bottom. The people that are involved, the way people work. Who cares about an independent schedule or not? What a great opportunity it is. We've held that line all year and we'll do it next year too.

It's going out and wanting to play the best competition possible. And when we talk to guys and shared the vision about coming to Oregon State, what the expectations are and how we'll go about our work, and we don't shy away from what everybody perceives as difficult things.

Those are great opportunities. And we kind of run into the storm because that's where the best gains in life are going to be made.

You can sit on your couch and play video games all day and never go outside and have someone else pay your bills. Or you can really take on life and do it the right way and go earn that dollar, and then go share that dollar with somebody else as opposed to putting it in your own pocket.

My younger brother taught me that before he passed away. You work your butt off. You treat people with respect. You do the right thing. And you share. You share everything that you have. You share your finances, you share your emotions, you share your wisdom, your grit, and you want other people to share those things as well. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

But I know at Oregon State, as I looked at our coaching staff in there, I'm so incredibly proud of these guys because we're still here. And when I first took the job, everyone tried to come out and rip this place apart.

These guys stayed. They continued to battle and to make this place everything that it possibly could be and everything that we could do.

And portals and NILs and COVID, you name it, all the stuff that comes up, you name it, it's just stuff. We welcome it.

Guess what? There's probably going to be more stuff that happens next year, or probably tomorrow and the next day and every day of your life from here on out.

Again, I believe opening the windows and the doors and going out and experiencing the world, not hiding in a corner and thinking that everything's going to be okay. It's not the right way to live. It's not the way God wants us to live.

Q. Very rarely do recruits live up to the hype the way Gavin Turley did. As his college career ends, what stands out to you about his time at Oregon State?

MITCH CANHAM: He's incredible. He loves his family. He loves his friends. He loves -- he loves. And he cares so much.

I've enjoyed every conversation I've had with him. I've enjoyed watching him communicate with other people. He can talk to anybody and make them feel special because he believes in that.

And he wants every answer to the test. He wants to know, like, where does he struggle, and he's going to go attack it. The guy works his butt off, and he still finds time to really enjoy and experience the world.

So when people say that there's limits -- I don't have time for this or that, that guy's putting me to sleep while he's playing the piano. It's beautiful. That guy has gone out and flew airplanes. He's jumped in the rivers and off -- he had all the guys jumping off a bridge into the river as a bonding moment. I'm watching these guys do back flips and stuff. I can't swim worth beans, so I was more wading on the side, wading and hoping that nobody was going to get hurt.

But he brings joy. And, so, like the baseball stuff is awesome. He's an incredible baseball player and going to play for a very long time. He's going to continue to make adjustments. And any organization would be silly not to want that guy right out the gate.

Those three guys I'm sitting next to, they're going to play baseball for a very long time. And after the game, Gavin's like, I really want to come back this fall and share some of my memories and feelings and just motivate the next group. I said, I don't doubt it. I expect to see you every year. I'm going to be following you.

He's going to be part of my family forever. My kids love him. He's done a great job inspiring my children, which I know he's inspired so many others. He's brought so much joy.

And we're going to miss him from being around us every day but at the same time as someone who loves him, I'm also excited for him to go spread his wings and transform a different community.

He smashed all kinds of records. We've been very fortunate. We have great people that come through Oregon State. And a big reason we've had a lot of great people come through is because guys like Gavin are very hard on us and the others to make sure that they're high-quality people, too. That's something that's always been at Oregon State. And having Gavin be part of our family has been so incredible because he's made so many people around him better.

I love my coaching staff, and they do that as well. I'm constantly surrounded by amazing people. And I never lose the gratitude for that. And if I do, my wife reminds me. She keeps me in line and I have so many other good people that keep me on a good path. But that kid brings joy.

Q. The tenor of this game -- I'm going to ask you a question about the game -- when you look back on it, you guys are grinding and grinding, coming from behind. You get to that ninth inning and obviously the emotional swings of it all and kind of the disjointedness of it all in both halves. Just what did you notice about the way your team handled all of that? And could you comment on the swings there?

MITCH CANHAM: A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Started off, we tried to execute, thought we were going to go for a back pick, essentially a pitch-out, and throw the guy out at second base or attempt at it. We left just too much on the plate and the guy deposited one in left field.

Little mistakes that happened. But we rebounded from it. We checked in. We checked in around the fifth inning and brought everybody together said, second half.

If this game is going to take four more innings, okay, if it takes five, 10, 20, who cares, we'll give everything we have, go up there with big focus.

There were a handful of times we had runners on third, less than two outs, and we were unable to score them. There were other times that we put some runs across, too.

Singer is sitting there, we weren't able to get a bunt down, and he dropped a single over into right side. Continued to battle. It never feels like there's any quit.

And right there at the end, we probably shocked the heck out of everybody. They bring guys in. We're finding ways to get on base, hit-by-pitch, base hit, what have you.

Tyce Peterson, his leg is not in a great spot right now. He's going to take some time to heal up. But he's out there in the lineup everyday, and he legs out to get to second base when it's not easy for him to run right now.

No one's taking him out of the lineup. He wants to play, and he's in a great spot.

So when I see stuff like that where guys have little injuries going on where it's prohibiting some of the way that they go about their business, but also it's, again, it's neither good nor bad. When Krieg sat out at the end of the year for a weekend, Tyce stepped up, played the heck out of first base, got on fire with the bat. Some stuff happens with his leg, deep shin-splint stuff, and it's really hard for him to run. So, he goes to DH.

Now Krieg's back in, but Krieg worked his butt off during that time off. He didn't mope; he worked his butt off. So, he's ready to go out there and put together a solid World Series, super. And then Tyce is rolling.

It always has a way. We don't know the Lord's plans necessarily. We just need to trust it and keep the faith. Even as that situation, even at the end of the game, you know, I can't remember Wilson having a catcher's interference all year.

It's supposed to be this way. It's supposed to be really difficult. But how incredible? We brought in Zach Edwards, a freshman, who just threw two days ago, running 96, 98 because he works his butt off, and I'm telling you, he was ready. I wasn't worried one bit about bases loaded him, coming in.

I saw it, I go, strikeout, double play. I also threw another scenario, punch out, punch out, punch out. But that was wishful thinking.

But I thought it would be cooler if we got a ground ball, threw it home, over to first, bring it in, go on another crazy rally and then watch one of those guys finish out the game.

Again, I thought the guys handled it extremely well. It's tough. I think we pushed through one. When they did lay down a bunt, it's not like Klein has bunted many times this year. He only had like five attempts.

He lays one down, back to them. We go press through it, it kicks away. So be it. I don't even know if a catcher's interference is reviewable or not. I was just going out to buy some time, calm the mood a little bit, right?

You see everyone start to elevate. Just give it a go and review it. And apparently you can. But more so just controlling emotions, and we've gotten so much better at that as the year has gone on responding to those things. So they kept the faith. It's a strong group.