AJ Ciscar Learns From His Georgia Tech Mistakes and Prepares For Rebound in Regionals
CORAL GABLES — The Miami Hurricanes can only go as far as their star pitchers go, and in the ACC Tournament, the Canes saw what it was like to face off against the best offense in the country.
Georgia Tech blitzed the Canes, starting with AJ Ciscar, who would consistently make the same small mistake with a hanging slider that would be blasted time after time.
It was just another day's work for the Yellow Jackets, but for Ciscar, it was a learning lesson that he will have to dissect, recover from, and build on in the Gainesville Regional.
"I just kind of learned that it's like, it's not necessarily about the situation you're in," Ciscar said, reviewing his Georgia Tech performance. "It's like you got two outs, you can't kind of take the foot off the gas a little bit.
"You got to just stay persistent, stay pounding the zone, and just kind of stay consistent in like, I wouldn't say shapes, but more in like how you're approaching hitters. So if you're gonna be aggressive, you've got to stay aggressive and kind of pitch around guys, like stick to the plan kind of thing."
Ciscar also knows that in these moments, the team and himself have to remain calm and remember that this is the moment, and they can't look last anyone. Similar to how th eCanes played Boston College and will play Troy, they can't overlook them in the same vain that the Yellow Jackets where waiting on them, similar to Florida.
"Kind of keeps you living in the moment a little bit, right, where you can't look past where it's like, we're playing Boston College, but we know Georgia Tech's waiting for us in the semifinals," Ciscar said. "We didn't look past Boston College. We took care of business and we won that game, and we actually kind of dominated that game, at least I think, because we were in control the entire time.
"And just kind of keeping that moving forward, similar this week, where it's like, yeah, Florida, it was potentially gonna, they still have to win their game as well. And we got to take care of business in our game, because all that matters is what we do. If we don't win this game, we don't end up playing, we don't end up being in the winner's bracket. So we just got to focus on what we have to do."
Ciscar's season has been up and down. A sophomore slump would be the idea of the season that the star pitcher has had. Ciscar enters the Gainesville Regionals with 14 starts, a 5-3 record, 4.44 ERA, 79 IP, with 76 strikeouts.
Now he has a chance to make a name for himself again, like he did his freshman season in the Hattiesburg Regional.
"it's awesome. I mean, it's an opportunity that we can now, like, get back at them for, you know, previously in the year, but as well, I mean, a few other guys and I that were here last year, we've already been in that environment," Ciscar said ahead of Regionals. "We know what it's gonna be like, and we're ready to get to work."
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.
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