Everything Rob Vaughn and Alabama Baseball Players Said After Losing to Miami

Hattiesburg, Miss. - The Alabama Crimson Tide baseball program came up just short in the opening game of the Hattiesburg Regional of the NCAA Tournament against the Miami Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes got a strong effort on the mound and utilized timely hitting to win 5-3 and send the Crimson Tide to the loser's side of the regional.

Alabama head coach Rob Vaughn along with infielder Brennen Norton and relief pitcher Matthew Heiberger spent time with the media after the loss to discuss Friday's challenges and how the team plans to respond on Saturday.

Rob Vaughn Opening Statement

"Yeah, I mean that's a good baseball game. They came out early and kind of threw a haymaker first. We kind of settled in. Q [Riley Quick] competed his absolute tail off for us and gave us a chance, held them at bay and gave us a chance and we clawed our way back into it. You saw the grit and the fight in these guys, they're down, two outs with nobody on with Walters on the mound and just what an at-bat there by Fowler, just fouling off pitches, grinding out at-bats, finds a way on. Bron gets hit by a pitch and man I just knew that ball was out off Kade's bat and it just wasn't. It was a foot short. That's this game. That's this game.

"I thought AJ Ciscar was absolutely unbelievable. It was all strikes. It was mix. He was kind of able to weather that storm there in the fourth and kind of keep turning in zeroes after that. Really well executed. It's a pitch here. It's a mistake here. It's a freebe there and you hate sitting on this side of it, but I told our guys at the end of the day now the only thing that matters is getting to Sunday. Get to Sunday. You start thinking about how many games you have to win and start doing that we might as well not show up to the yard tomorrow, because we're either going to play a really good Southern Miss team or a really good Columbia team. All that matters is us showing up to the yard with a lot of mentality and fight to stay together and get to Sunday and we'll figure out Sunday when we get there. I love these kids, I'm proud as heck of their fight. We were about a foot short today and that's a hard one to swallow and Kade Snell deserved that thing to blow about a foot further and it just didn't and that's this game. I love these kids, proud of them and I know they'll be ready to rock tomorrow."

Did you consider a pinch-hitter when Rob Evans was put into the game in the eighth?

Vaughn, "Yeah, there's a thought of it, but lefties are actually better off him. He just executed pitches to Brady, just really, really good pitches. I mean threw a slider away, he was able to take. Dotted up two heaters and threw a really good slider late. You're hoping one of those backs up, but so much of this, we look at it and the common baseball logic is, 'Hey left handed arm, bring a right handed hitter in'. But the splits on him are actually reverse splits, lefties actually are better against him. On the report, we felt like Brady was a good matchup and he just executed pitches on him there."

Did the brief delay and Riley Quick's two-week layoff have anything to do with his slow start?

Vaughn, "I don't think so. I don't think so. Just didn't find the zone and walked the leadoff guy and then the next guy puts a good swing on it and Bryce gives us a good effort and I think he would tell you probably 100 times out of 100 he's got to catch it, unfortunately he didn't. Then he gets Cuve in a two-strike count. I mean, Cuve's a really good player and he executed a slider. It was a ball off, just wasn't quite far enough off and he puts a great swing on it, but the story of it was that he stopped it there. That's what was big on it. I don't think that had anything to do with it. It's hot. He's a big boy. He competed his tail off. He did what I knew Riley Quick would do for us. He pitched good enough for us to win we just couldn't quite get that big hit."

Did you notice the conditions change throughout the game affecting the last hit?

Vaughn, "No, I mean he was on time and he got it. I've been here before, I knew that was a deep part of the park. I honestly thought he got enough of it. Riley was bear hugging me. He was picking me off the ground. He thought he got enough of it. You can usually tell by the outfielders and how they're going and I could see that that guy was feeling like he was going to get to it. We needed one more foot. We needed one more foot or to pull it 10 more feet, but you can't control any of that. He was on time he took a great swing off a really good arm and came up just a tick short."

What happened on the Daniel Cuve home run?

Vaughn, "Yeah, it was a chase-slider. It was called kind of a chase-slider. It was off, but it was about a ball off and Cuve can still handle that. It wasn't a terrible pitch. It was not a terrible pitch. It just needed to be a tick more. You circle that guy as the guy you don't want to beat you. There in the first, you're not too- even with the three spot I wasn't concerned whatsoever about the outcome of that game. I'd have loved for that slider to be a tick better but it wasn't a terrible pitch, just needed to be a little bit more chase and he didn't miss it."

What did you think of Alabama's offensive approach to AJ Ciscar?

Vaughn, "He's just good man. I was waiting to hear their starters, and it's not a knock on anybody else on that staff, but I knew he was going to be a bear. I talked to a lot of my buddies in the ACC and they asked who's throwing and I told them Ciscar they said oh boy, he's good. He had one, not even a bad outing, but a tough outing against Virginia but outside of that the guys been pretty dominant and it's all strikes. He does a really good job of bringing that two-seam back away from righties, which is a little bit different from a low slot guy and then runs the slider off of it. I thought he was awesome. I looked up at one point and it was like he had thrown three balls. You go in there and it's like you move early and there's not a lot to it, if you move late in the count you're going to be in a two-strike count all night. You've got to credit him for executing pitches and we set that fourth up and punched three across. For a young pup, the maturity to come back and hang some zeroes after that is really impressive. That guy's going to be a really good arm in college baseball and he was great today."

What does Bryce Fowler's long at-bat in the ninth inning do for the Alabama hitters?

Brennen Norton, "Well it gives us, obviously, more pitches to see. I was just talking to Bronny on-deck about it and kind of what he was throwing and whatnot. Also, it just gives us life. If he's up there battling his tail off that gives us life. Even with two outs in the bottom of the night we still had it almost in our hands so I think having a long at-bat like that just gives us more energy, more life."

Matthew Heiberger what did it mean to you to go out and have a strong bullpen outing, saving the rest of the unit for the remainder of the weekend?

Matthew Heiberger, "That fires me up. I can't wait to see those guys go out there and compete their tail off. Those guys are always going to go out there and give it their best. I'm fired up for those guys to get out there."

What did you see with your two-out two-RBI double in the fourth inning?

Brennen Norton, "It was big, but I'm still kind of upset that we didn't get the job done, but it was a big hit, but it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day we lost. We've just got to be mature enough to move on and win tomorrow."

What was the team's approach to attacking AJ Ciscar as he was working so efficiently?

Brennen Norton, "I think we were just kind of struggling to pick it up, to be honest, in the beginning of the game. Later we started getting deeper into at-bats and kind of letting him work and not like pressing to try to get a hit. I think deeper into the game we got more deep into at-bats and I think that's where we had more success. When we would rush at-bats that where we would not see success."

What do you anticipate the team's response will be tomorrow?

Vaughn, "I anticipate a really frustrated ride back to the hotel and then we're going to take a shower. We're going to take our laundry down to the meeting room and we're going to eat dinner and from dinner on, we're done. We're not thinking about today. We're not dwelling on today. We're probably going to watch a game tonight and figure out who we're playing. You've got two good teams. This regional, you look at it, it's four really good teams. Whether we're playing Southern Miss and have Middleton tomorrow or whether we're playing Columbia, we're going to have a dog fight on our hands tomorrow. So I trust that this group - like you can't act like this isn't disappointing. Let's call it what it is. It's one thing when you come out and get your tail kicked. These hurts worse. It hurts worse when you hit a ball a foot from the fence that walks it off, instead, Miami's in here having this first meeting and they're feeling like they just lost it and we're in here throwing water all over the place excited. That's the game of baseball. There's a foot is the difference in this game at time. Shoot, Hodo smashes a ball, Cuve makes a stupid-good play on a backhand dive. That's the game, those are the games. The margins between losing and winning is so small, I trust - I want these guys to be ticked off. I don't want us to be sitting in the bus high-fiving, like, this sucks. Nobody wants to be sitting here. But we're also mature enough to go take a shower, to go wash this off. The thing that's so fun about this group is their mentality and who they are. How they show up everyday is so impressive and I have zero doubt that we will roll out here tomorrow and regardless of who we're playing there will be no hangover from today, and that's all you can ask for. That's what a neutral mindset it. Let's go to the facts. The facts are we lost, that sucks, but let's be mature to say it has no bearing on tomorrow unless we let it. Last year we lost a game like this to UCF, back and forth game, lose by one. We had a hangover the next day. We weren't great against Stetson the next day. This is our opportunity to be different and this group has been different all year. I'm so dang proud of these kids and how they fight and I have zero doubt we'll show up ready to go tomorrow."

Hattiesburgh Regional Schedule

Hattiesburgh Schedule | Joe Gaither | Screensho