June 6, 2016
Washington head coach Lindsay Meggs
Opening statement:
“I want to congratulate Xavier. They have had a great year and they are a well-coached group. They play hard. I was impressed with how they handled tonight. I want to wish UCSB luck as well. I want to thank the people at Vanderbilt for having us here and we really appreciated the hospitality. It’s a great venue and a great place to play. We hope to get back here some day. I’m really proud of the guys. We were picked to come in eighth in the Pac 12 and we had a relatively young group of guys and a somewhat inexperienced pitching staff. I think we will be back and this was a great experience for us. We are looking forward to taking the next step of trying to get to a Super Regional and ultimately get to Omaha, which is the goal at the University of Washington.”
On how tough it was to dig out of a big hole early:
“You can’t feel comfortable when you are behind the eight ball that early in the ball game. Joe has had a problem keeping the ball in the park and it came up and bit him early in the first inning. I give our guys a lot of credit. We have had some of those moments this year. There is some toughness in our program and Alex Nesbit came in and gave us some good innings in relief is a good example of that. It’s tough, but it is part of the game. You benefit from that toughness and I think that was the makeup of our team all year long. We never gave up and we always kept pushing.”
Xavier head coach Scott Googins
On how the bullpen performed:
“We’ve got some young guns in the bullpen like Taylor Williams and Garrett Schilling. Coming into this year we didn’t have a lot of experience in the bullpen and they have done an unbelievable job. There were some pressure situations that those guys produced in. I think Garrett has the school record for saves now, which is a pretty big accomplishment.”
On what it will take to beat UC Santa Barbara twice tomorrow:
“We aren’t worried about it twice right now. Greg Jacknewitz will start for us; he has got to give us a good start. We are playing really good defense right now. Our offense is clicking for the most part. So we have to go out there and get a good start on the mound. We’ve got some arms still fresh that can throw for us. We have to see if those young guys can come back. It’s not a win at all cost. People asked if I can bring Zac Lowther back, absolutely not. We are going to look at some pitch counts and see what we have to do. But if we can get a good start, it’s easier to piece some things together. We will figure it out for the second game. We just have to take it one game at a time and one inning at a time.”