Atlantic Coast Conference
Baseball Championship
Thursday May 25, 2017
Dan McDonnell
Josh Stowers
Brendan McKay
Louisville
Louisville - 10, Notre Dame - 3.
DAN MCDONNELL: We took advantage. The offense
did a good job of competing and McKay gave us
another quality start, which we've gotten so many times
in three years. I just want to congratulate Notre Dame,
man. They fought hard. That game yesterday, man,
I'm sure took a lot out of them, but you knew the pride
they had, and they were going to come in and play
hard, and even down 5-0, man, they battled and put
their two-out rally together and they forced us to work,
just two teams that played really hard tonight, and
fortunately we took advantage of a few mistakes and
had some nice two-out rallies.
Q. Brendan, just talk about I think it was the first
pitch on the grand slam; what did you see and
what did you kind of think of that?
BRENDAN McKAY: Previously I think I asked
somebody, hey, is this going to slow a slider yet, and I
think he had thrown one or two to a couple of the
lefties. Really not knowing what he was going to throw
in that situation, if he wants to get ahead and then start
working stuff, but he threw a first-pitch curveball that
kind of hung up there. I got fooled a little bit out front
but stayed back long enough to get the barrel through
the zone.
Q. Did you think you had it?
BRENDAN McKAY: I thought I had a good shot at it,
yeah.
Q. How good does it feel to get back into the win
column?
BRENDAN McKAY: Feels great after three tough
games before that, just really battling and not getting
the results you want. It feels great to come in and have
a good game overall.
Q. What did you feel like on the mound? It seemed
like a couple innings, a couple control issues, but
other than that, you seemed pretty -- like you were?
BRENDAN McKAY: Yeah, started off the game pretty
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well, feeling good, and then hit a little bump third or
fourth inning and then got back on track after that, so
really just that one inning got out of whack and just
needed to fight through it.
Q. Josh, obviously coming into the game you must
have been feeling pretty good.
JOSH STOWERS: Yeah, I felt pretty good. It wasn't
the most conventional four for five, definitely one of the
best swings, but a hit is a hit, so I'll take it.
Q. You really cut off that rally. It looked like they
were about to do some damage.
JOSH STOWERS: Yeah, I forgot who the hitter was,
but he put a good swing on the ball and he hit it pretty
hard, so I had some momentum coming into it, and
previously a couple days before, Coach Mac got on all
the outfielders about taking ground balls like game
speed, and just from doing that, there was no panic,
and I was able to put a good throw to our catcher.
Q. Brandon, did you think that that kind of got the
momentum back in y'all's favor?
BRENDAN McKAY: Yeah, we were a little down, giving
up some runs, and the energy being taken away from
us, that throw put some energy back in us. You always
get excited after a good throw or a good play or just
anything good in general, so that always brings your
energy back up and the emotion back to you.
Q. Josh, what did it feel like, three losses in a row?
It's got to feel good to get one back.
JOSH STOWERS: Yeah, it's always good to win.
Nobody on our team likes to lose, especially with all the
work that we've put in throughout the season. I just felt
in those three games that we lost, we were never out of
it, but there were certain innings to where we were just
down for no reason, there was just no confidence, and I
feel like after these couple days off, everybody got their
focus back, and we were just able to regroup and come
out with a bunch of energy today.
Q. What did you think of the environment out
there?
BRENDAN McKAY: It's awesome, really. I love when
we have 6,000 fans in Jim Patterson Stadium and it's
rocking, and you still love it here, just the atmosphere,
everybody was excited, and just to play in a new
atmosphere with a little bit different surroundings, a
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little bit bigger ballpark, it has a different feeling than
just the traditional college stadium with 6,000 fans, but
they're packed in there. You've got a little more room
here.
Q. The stakes are high tomorrow, the rematch
against a Florida State team that had your number
last week twice. How much are you looking
forward to this opportunity?
BRENDAN McKAY: This is what you look forward to all
year. You know throughout the season you're going to
play pretty much everybody on your side of the
conference, and then a few teams that are crossed
over, so you always look forward to the conference
tournament when you see who you get matched up
with, some teams you didn't have as much success
against or teams you did have success against. Just
you want to get back in and play some quality
competition and maybe get some revenge if you say so
on some certain teams or have a different attitude.
Q. What did you take away from those last two
Florida State games that will help you outcome?
JOSH STOWERS: I would just say hitting-wise, there's
just some adjustments that we all needed to make,
especially facing Tyler Holton, and I just feel like just
with the work that we put in over the last couple days, I
feel like we were coming out a lot stronger and with a
lot more energy, and I'm confident we'll get the W
tomorrow.
Q. How much does it help you guys that everybody
else had to travel and you guys got to stay home?
BRENDAN McKAY: I think it's awesome that the past
two years we've ended on the road, both in North
Carolina schools playing at NC State my freshman year
and Wake Forest last year, so you come home for a
day, two days, and you have one practice and then
you're back on the road again, so it's nice to be here,
have a regular practice, get all your treatment that you
want, extra swings that you can get here, and also you
don't have to go anywhere, you can get regular meals,
sleep in your own bed, just relax, and almost feel like
you're at home.
Q. Josh, what does batting in the No. 2 spot do for
your confidence?
JOSH STOWERS: There's really no difference
between batting 2 and 8. I just filled in for Colby who
was a great hitter and I'm expecting him to be back
pretty soon. Going 4 for 5 is always awesome, but I
feel like I've taken the same approach day in and day
out, and today I just happened to get four hits.
Q. What do you think your team's mindset is going
into tomorrow?
DAN MCDONNELL: Just a lot of respect for Florida
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State, and you know, had a chance in both the games
we played against them, but realize we didn't play well
enough, and they're really good. They're playing well
at this time of the year, and you know, like Brendan
said, this is fun. This is exciting. This is the joy of
playing in the ACC, and the thing about this
tournament, it's a super packed tournament. The one
positive is you won't see these teams in a regional.
You could cross them maybe in a super regional or
Omaha, but they won't send them to your regional.
But just so much respect for Coach Martin and their
program, and they're really good players. They're
obviously playing well. They know they're in a good
spot for the NCAAs and the regionals, so I'm sure
that's taking some of the pressure off of them, and just
good players playing good baseball.
Q. What is the availability of Colby Fitch?
DAN MCDONNELL: Just day-to-day. Just got to be
smart with him and make sure. He's around. He's
smiling. He's in the dugout. He's talking to players.
He's focused in the game. So just make sure he feels
okay, and guys have stepped up all year, so Zeke did a
nice job, and we wanted to get Rumoro out there to
make sure we had two catchers with confidence and
experience going into tomorrow.
Q. Is he just banged up?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, yeah, just he had a little
collision in our controlled scrimmage the other day, and
just wasn't feeling 100 percent. You know, so we've
just got to be smart, especially this time of the year. I
mean, we want to win and we'll do our best. We're
going to go out there and compete. But there's another
tournament next weekend, so we've just got to make
sure everybody is available.
Q. Do you expect to continue with your normal
pitching rotation?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, yeah. We want Kade to get
a quality start tomorrow. He threw well against them
last week, and you know, both he and Brendan, that
will give them enough rest going into the regionals next
weekend.
Q. How about Brendan, just comes up with one big
thing after another, grand slam tonight.
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, I just keep saying I'm glad
I've been in the dugout to witness this. I mean, this is a
pretty remarkable -- what he does for a team, when
you look at our run in the ACC, the three years we've
been in the league, we were fortunate that we had this
group of McKay and Hairston and all these juniors, and
obviously they played with a lot of good players ahead
of them. But everybody knows McKay has been front
and center in this three-year run, so he's done so much
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for our program. It's nice to see the recognition he's
getting in college baseball, and not just for this year but
for his career. To me that's always going to stand out
more than anything is the consistency in the three
years. You just don't see that often in college baseball
or with amateurs.
Q. How big was a clean game tonight for you
defensively after the last couple?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, it's something we talk about.
You've got to dominate the routine play. I mean, as you
watch these games, if you give teams that fourth out in
an inning, you're going to pay, and we made some nice
plays, real solid. It starts on the mound. Brendan set
the tone. He just had that one hiccup, but it's going to
come down to making great plays. I know Duke is 2-0
and they've already advanced, and just hearing a little
bit about their games and seeing a little bit, defense,
you know, you've got to play great defense, and the
saying goes in all sports that defense wins
championships. It's so crucial in postseason baseball.
Q. Talk about the defensive plays, Josh's play and
the rally there. What did you think about that?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, Coach Snider does a great
job with our catchers, so we hit them fungo balls, plays
at the plate every week where they've got to be able to
handle -- I thought Zeke made a nice play. It was kind
of a short hop or an in-between hop. Like Josh said,
we really get on the outfielders, Coach Vrable does a
nice job with them about cutting down the distance on
balls, getting the ball out of the glove quickly, and you
know, I think Logan, Taylor and -- Colin Lyman is the
best I've ever coached at it, and everyone is better
because of seeing how quickly Colin Lyman gets to the
ball, takes one less step and gets it out, and he and
Logan have gotten better every year, and so for Josh to
play a couple years with those guys, it's only helped
him. We always say you become a product of your
society, and hopefully Josh is taking advantage of
playing with Corey Ray, Summers, Lyman and Taylor,
guys who take so much pride in their outfield play. As
a coach, it's good to see you have success on things
you work on. We just take a lot of pride in the little
things, and that's an area, like Josh said, it's something
we take pride in.
to another level, so it gave me the foundation that,
man, I could go anywhere and compete and use the
system that I learned there and win, and so, you know,
that's why I'm sitting here today.
Q. A lot of talk about being at home for this
tournament. Do you feel like you guys -- because
you were the last one, the rain delays, do you get a
little antsy?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, coming off the losses,
practicing, these guys are just chomping at the bit.
We're just glad the sun is out. You know, I joked with
Duke that, hey, you're in Louisville and you're in The
Finals, you know, you're in the semifinals. You went 20, so maybe we don't have to play in Durham every
year. It just comes down to playing good baseball.
You've just got to play good baseball. I've said any one
of these 12 teams can win this tournament. You've got
to play clean, good baseball, and that's what makes it
so much fun. Just the teams are so good. The players
are so good, and they're used to handling pressure.
So no one is going to -- I love our crowd, I love the
atmosphere, I love showing off the fan base, but I don't
think anyone is going to be intimidated. These guys
play in beautiful ballparks, great crowds all year, so
that's the advantage of playing in the ACC is you're
used to atmospheres like this.
Q. Does getting back in the winning column give
them an extra boost of confidence heading into
tomorrow?
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, this game is all about
confidence and feeling good about yourself and having
a tough week, the toughest week of the year. They're
human, you know, so -- but they work hard, like Josh
said, they put in the time. They prepare.
Q. Coach Jordan retiring, just a quick statement
about that.
DAN MCDONNELL: Yeah, I wouldn't be sitting here
today if it weren't for Coach Jordan. He gave me my
first coaching job. He allowed me to hit the road and
recruit and make mistakes at a young age he taught
me a lot about life, about the game, about being a
great husband, a great father, and he took the baseball
program to another level, so when I played there, we
played at a high level, but when he took over, he took it
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