Wake Forest Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest 11, UMBC 3
6/2/2017 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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NCAA Winston-Salem Regional
Postgame Quotes
Game 2
Wake Forest 11, UMBC 3
Wake Forest Head Coach Tom Walter
Opening Statement:
"First and foremost, a great win for the program. What a crowd tonight, we could feel that energy from the dugout, we were so pumped to play in front of that crowd, a packed house tonight, and I think it's going to be even bigger tomorrow. We were pretty fired up about the energy in the ballpark tonight. Starting with CJ (Connor Johnstone), obviously he goes out and gives us an unbelievable start. We put together two big innings, had a six-run inning where we strung quality at-bats together, and a four-run inning. I thought where the game turned, it was 6-2, they load the bases on a walk and an error and kind of a bleeder to right. CJ keeps it to a one, minimizes that inning, gets us in the dugout 6-3, and we score four to make it 10-3 and that was kind of the ballgame from there. CJ gave us 7 2/3, and Mo got the last four outs, so our pitching's set up for the rest of the regional."
On how today's game sets up his bullpen for the rest of the weekend…
"Well, it's huge. Depending on what happens tomorrow night, we're going to either need to win three or four games, so we've got a lot of baseball to play left in this regional. To not use (Colin) Peluse, to not use (Chris) Farish, to not use (Griffin) Roberts or (John) McCarren, our four most reliable bullpen guys are fresh and we've still got (Donnie) Sellers and (Parker) Dunshee. So we've got a lot of innings kind of in our holster right now."
Wake Forest Senior Pitcher Connor Johnstone:
On what it meant to take the mound tonight…
"It was an incredible feeling. When I got here freshman year, I never expected to start the first game in a hosted regional here. That's definitely something that every freshman who steps on campus dreams about, is being the guy that starts and goes really deep into the game, and has everybody cheering him on the whole game, so it was incredible."
On leaving the game to a standing ovation…
"Yeah, that was really cool too. I kind of got goosebumps there. I've never had a standing ovation before, so that was a really cool feeling as well."
Wake Forest Junior Outfielder Stuart Fairchild
On the success of the offense today…
"Usually, in the past our offense is based off the home run, we score a lot of runs from the home run, but it's good to see that even on a day that we don't hit a home run, we can still string quality at bats together and Coach Walter is huge on that. That's how you win games, stringing quality at bats together. We were able to do that together for multiple innings, and that's what got us the win."
On being a well-rounded offense…
"A lot of teams come into our place knowing that were going to hit home runs, but that's not what our whole team is based around. We can do small ball, we had a bunt hit today, and we strung together a bunch of hits, so it's not just the home run with us."
UMBC Head Coach Bob Mumma
Opening Statement:
"We played a really good Wake Forest team. I thought our kids really battled hard and they did a good job getting some hits together in a couple of innings. They certainly got off to a really good start with a six-run inning. We battled back by scoring a couple of runs with a few zeroes on the board but give credit to those guys, they did a good job late in the ballgame by continuing to score some runs. We had a few chances with the bases loaded but we just came up short today. I'm really proud of this group for how they came out and fought today but Wake Forest just played really hard."
On a facing Maryland for the second time this season…
"Anytime you play a team you know more about their hitters and what they like to do. They're a great team who has had a lot of success in the tournament the last couple of years and our guys will look forward to the challenge. Our guys have done a good job all year, whether it was having to win some Sunday games in the last game of a series and they've put some rust behind earlier in the year and they'll come out ready to play tomorrow. It'll be the same thing we've talked about all year long. We'll try and go out and play a good baseball game and give ourselves a chance to win late in the game and hope to stick around in Winston-Salem as long as we can."
UMBC Senior Outfielder Andrew Casali
On the impact of the crowd…
"The atmosphere today was really electric. It was very noisy. We're not used to seeing as many fans but at the end of the day it's just another baseball game and we just came up a little short today."
On the energy in their dugout as they attempted to rally…
"Our energy in our dugout has been one of the best things all year. We tried to carry that over as much as we can. Our energy was really high at that point and we felt that we could push a couple of more runs across the board. We really felt that that was going to change the game at some point there. It just didn't work out that way."
UMBC Sophomore Outfielder Raven Beeman
On the feeling of playing in the postseason…
"It's kind of cool. We don't see that many people come and watch our team play. It's very special and our guys really took that into consideration. It meant a lot to some of the guys coming in here today. Hats off to them."
On Wake Forest ending the UMBC rally…
"We didn't think that that was the end of our chances to get back in the game. We know that we're capable of putting on runs no matter what the situation is. The bottom of the inning wasn't a lapse of energy, it was just an inability to make quality pitches when we needed to."
