What Wake Forest coach Tom Walter said on Knoxville Regional loss to Tennessee
Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter met with members of the media on Monday night to recap his club’s loss to Tennessee in the Knoxville Regional Final. Below is video and a written transcript from the Wake Forest postgame press conference.
Up Next: Tennessee advances on in the NCAA Tournament to take on Arkansas in Fayetteville this weekend for super regional play. Official dates and game times will be announced at a later time.
Opening Statement…
“I would like to congratulate Tennessee on a game well played and advancing to the next round of the [tournament, the] Super Regional. What an incredible venue they have here and a great fan base. It’s been a pleasure playing here for the last four days. I’m proud of our guys and the way we battled. I hate that it’s over for our seniors and the guys we will lose to the draft, but I’m proud of the way we competed. Two great baseball teams gave it all today and we came up on the short end.”
On keeping Duncan Marsten in…
“I thought he was a good matchup for [him facing Manny] Marin. We had two outs and the nine-hole hitter up. I thought Marsten was the right matchup there. Probably should have had [Joe] Ariola ready for [Gavin] Kilen and then [Andrew] Fischer coming in behind him. There are two outs and it’s a 3-2 game if we get off the field right there. But give credit to Marin—he put a good swing on the ball and got it out of the ballpark.”
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On his team having 16 strikeouts against Tennessee’s pitching…
“I think we [ended up with] more than that yesterday. Tennessee’s got power arms. The guys we saw today are guys who strike out a ton of hitters. We certainly needed to do a better job of putting more balls in play, but that’s easier said than done against those types of arms.” On if they expected to see Liam Doyle… “Yeah, we did expect that. We figured if they had the lead, they’d go to him and we knew we’d have our hands full. Coming back off that guy [on the short side] is not easy, you just try to get on time for his fastball. When he’s commanding it, like he did tonight, at the top of the zone, it’s darn near unhittable. Our guys battled, but they were just a little better than us tonight.”
On the early walks his team gave up…
“Griffin Green and Slim [Zach Johston] have not been great strike-throwers recently. We knew that was an issue, but the infield hit hurt us too. Slim made a good 3-2 pitch and we just got a little unfortunate there for getting out there. That changes that inning. When you give Tennessee, an offense like that, free 90s, they’re going to make you pay.”
On his conversations with players and retaining the roster…
“We certainly always have ongoing conversations about that stuff, but nothing official. Exit meetings will take place once we’re back on campus. We’re likely leaving tomorrow morning around 10 or 11 a.m. and should get back by mid to late afternoon. Some of those meetings may happen tomorrow night and into Wednesday. Within the next 48 hours, we should have a good sense of what our returning roster will look like.”
