Thank you for joining us. Everyone will now begin with an opening statement from Coachella Haven and then go to questions. Please be sure to use the raise hand function to indicate you'd like to ask a question when you're called on for your question, please state your name and affiliation first coach. If you can begin with an opening statement, just, you know, hard fought game, hard fought game against one of the great pictures in college baseball and I think he's one of the finalists for the Golden spikes award, which is a great honor and well deserved on his part. And uh, I thought our guys falling out with everything they had. We just, you know, when you're going against a guy like Kumar Rocker, um, you can't leave 12 men on base. You just gotta, I know it's hard to get that hit because of his stuff and how good and competitive he is, uh, followed up by some pretty good arms behind him. But uh, I just wish we could find a way to scratch a hit there and maybe we got a different outcome. Thank you coach at this time. We'll open it up for questions. We'll begin with a question from Bridget. Condon Bridget. You are now allowed to speak, make sure you amuse yourself and ask your questions. Hey coach project Condon from Abc 11. Can you just walk me through your day today when you found out that your roster or your lineup was going to be different and then of course, no moral victories. But what did you think of the way that your team played with the limited number of guys you had? Well, I'll talk about the way we played, which was my opening statement and you know, just a great gutty performance by gutty team. That's what, that's who we've been all year and some guys stepped up today and played and, and roles they haven't been asked to play in and just really proud of that. I don't want to discuss anything that happened today because quite frankly, I have no understanding of what happened today, so I'd rather not discuss any of that. Uh, next, next question will be mike, topper mike, go ahead and I mute and ask your questions. Hey coach mike Tober from Spectrum News one. I was wondering if you could give us your thoughts and impressions there on Garrett? Um, getting the start today, Obviously he came here not thinking he was gonna pitch today and just what you performance. Yeah, he gets told probably at about 1:00 or maybe later. Maybe it's like 1:30 That he's got the ball at 27 um, to throw against the defending national champs. I uh, you couldn't be more proud of him and his effort, but he's done that a few times this year, it's not the first time he's done that first time, he's done that on this stage. First time we've been at this stage this year, but if you if we've done things the right way and you can lock into to the game itself, which obviously he was able to do and feeney as well than this stage, um doesn't seem to different than the past places we've been on our a set to get here and just proud of his proud of of what he did. I knew he was very tired of the end and but he gave us actually one more inning um that we asked him to give uh there to make this thing work. Next question is Justin Williams Justin go ahead and a mute and ask your question, Hey coach Justin lives with the Wolfpack, er what was your message to the team when you learned that you were only going to have 13 guys available elbow before this game? Well one, there's a lot of confusion, they didn't know what was going on, I didn't know what was going on, so I couldn't really tell them, but when I found out We had the option to play with 13 guys or forfeit. Then obviously when you have guys that are committed to your program, as I, as I guys, our guys are all year, I don't think you do things from the top. I think it's always a decision made by the people that have done the work. It's always the people on the ground, they get the work done and sometimes at the top you have to make a decision, but this wasn't one of those circumstances and I just told the team what we were dealing with two options or forfeit or play with 13 guys And my vote was to play let me know what you want to do. Talk about probably six seconds. and uh just uh, that's that's who they are and we found a way to make it work and like I said, if you get a knock here there, we might be talking about uh, playing for a national championship starting on monday. But anyway, uh, now we got to come back tomorrow and being a really good Vanderbilt team and we got to go back and and regroup here and and see what's going to happen. Next question is from eric Olson. Eric make sure your immunity and go ahead and ask your question. Elliott's eric Olson with the Associated Press. You said you said that you couldn't talk about the events of today, but coming into today, did you require your guys or encourage you guys to get vaccinated? Did you have a policy on that? Uh huh. I didn't say I couldn't talk about. I said I wouldn't talk about, but I, um, yeah, we talked about a lot of things, you know what I'm saying? But it's not, uh, it's uh, always been, I've been coaching for a long time and I think I'm the, you can call it caretaker, You can call a babysitter or the guy that the parents drop their, their young men off and leaving my care and they've raised them to be the quality of people that we recruit. And uh, my job is to teach them baseball, make sure they get an education and keep them on the right track forward. But I don't try to indoctrinate my kids with my values and my, um, um, things that, you know, my opinions, obviously we talked about a lot of things, but uh these are young men that can make their own decisions and and and that's what they did. Yeah. Next question is from steve Wiseman steve, make sure your immune it and go ahead and ask your question. Mhm Thanks. Elliot, steve Weissman from the News and Observer. Um Do you know which players certainly won't play tomorrow? Like jt Jared, we heard has been sent home. Do you know he's not gonna play? Do you know, I have no idea what's going on. Zero, you know, as much as I know. Okay, the uh it just hasn't been communicated. Um I know this is a um odd situation and I know people have to deal with things, but we spent all day yesterday rob Murphy, scott, insulin myself spent all day yesterday dealing with a lot of things. And then, um today, we we got up and dealt with some other things. So anyway, it's uh I'm sure I'll get the information at some point. And when I get the information um that the ah deems appropriate, then we'll go from there. All right. We have a follow up question from from eric Olson eric. Go ahead. Yeah. You had said that you didn't want to indoctrinate your players into your philosophy. Did you get vaccinated yourself? I'll tell you eric I'm not gonna talk about that. You if you want to talk baseball, we could talk baseball. If you want to talk um, politics or stuff like that, you uh you can go talk to uh my head of sports medicine rob Murphy. All right. Uh follow up question again from steve Wiseman steve. I'm mutant. Ask your question. Thanks Elliot. Uh, ask about pitching for tomorrow. You don't have to use two guys that only only had four, but you have any idea who might be available to pitch tomorrow. I know you talked about some guys that might be once again, it's about who's gonna be on the roster, who's allowed to play and that that I haven't been told yet. So hopefully I'll get that information soon and then we'll go from there. Hopefully we'll have a lot of guys to pitch. Hopefully we'll have read johnson sam hi Phil um, and a lot of guys to pitch. So we'll see next question from rob mcclam rob. Please make sure your muted and ask your question. Yes sir, rob maclean from the Wilson Times. Well, you said it was unclear about what's going on in the build up to this game. Is there any clarity into what things could happen that would make your players eligible to play tomorrow? They're giving you any type of insight into what needs to be done. I had some kind of uh, conversation, um, yeah, with my athletic director who talked to the, um, I think maybe ahead of the championships or something. And uh, and and we discussed some things and then since the game has been over, um, rob Murphy is, is um, told me something that he thinks is going to happen, but I'm still not really sure. I spoke to my team and I came straight in here. Next question is from Elizabeth, Merrill, Elizabeth. Go ahead and ask your question. Hey coach, sorry if I missed this, because there was the Vanderbilt press conference going on at the same time. But could you kind of walk us through what this morning was like leading up to the game and how you found out about the test and or whatever the positive, how you found out about the covid protocols, uh, kept getting, not much said it was just like they delayed 1st. They kept us out of our locker room. And so he kept us out of the locker room. And then some of the players had to go back into a holding room and then they delayed, uh, infill outfield and nobody really knew what was going on. And then finally, I got told these were our options and, and that's what we chose to do. That's when we played the game, Were you told you had a positive or were you told why that was why you were being delayed? Uh, once again, that's, you're talking about stuff that's personal information and probably protected by whatever hip, That's something I don't want to discuss. If you wanna discuss that, you can discuss that with my administration. We got time for two more questions for coach and please take a baseball. Yeah. Let's go to uh let's go to erin fit Aaron you uh you can your mic and ask your question. Coach counterfeit doing baseball. Obviously we all know here's a baseball question for you. We all know how I feel came in as a two way guy. How much work has he gotten as a hitter this year? And what can you say about, you know, the guy coming and getting three hits in his first three at bats of the year? Well, first of all, he's gotten zero work as a hitter. Uh He uh we went to him and we would find out we were going to play and see if he wanted to go up to the cage and take a couple swings and he was excited. Uh, he's just a baseball player. You know, baseball players do things in baseball games and Sam Hi fields a baseball player. And if uh, if we have taken the lead there, he was going to close the game and at this game would have got extended and go to extras that he would have been at third base. Uh, he's just a baseball player and he's smart. I think his dad was, his granddad was one of the Phillies top prospects. I learned that from uh, the great legendary coach Wayne Graham a few days ago who played with Sam's grandfather and uh, he's just a baseball player and uh, you'll hear from Sam in a few minutes and Aaron, I appreciate the question. A final question goes to rob mcclam, rob. You can um, you ask the question yes sir. Um, the freshman you mentioned pain. Just your thoughts on Giles and all those guys that played. Yeah, Just, you know, you talk about this is when you get here, even though we have nine guys that have played for three months. This is a tremendous stage in a tremendous city that the Omaha is, the college baseball. What Augusta is to the Masters in this city, much like Augusta just wraps their arms about all the, around all the teams that come in. Uh, it brings in great, you know, money to the city. It brings in great exposure. I think the city has a lot of fun with it. Everybody we've met has just been awesome. So this is a grand grand stage. And so even for our guys to come here and play on this stage is a challenge. But for these guys that haven't played all year and find out, you know, 30 40 minutes prior to game time, hey, d you're going to third today and uh, Sam you're going to first. And uh, but anyway, it's uh, it's it's what you love about this game is one of the many things we love about this team and uh, it was just a lot of fun for me today, watching these guys compete. That's right. Thank you coach. Uh, we appreciate your time and we'll be joined momentarily by by Sam. Hi, Phil, thank you coach.