Thanks to a 10-4 victory over Stanford to open the College World Series Saturday, NC State is now into the winners’ bracket.
Head coach Elliott Avent spoke to the media after the victory, here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say:
Opening statement
I think we just played well and were fortunate to get off to a good start against a pitcher the quality of Brendan Beck. And I think that was good for [Reid Johnston], not that anything bothers Reid. I think he had a couple of long innings. And I thought we left some men on base.
When they came back and got that 3-spot there in the seventh, all you could think about is the men you left on base. Then we come up in the ninth. And that was a big, big inning for us.
And so just Reid Johnston was Reid Johnston. Evan Justice was Evan Justice. And I thought some of the guys at the top of the lineup had big, big days.
You mentioned the top of the lineup, but looking at Jonny Butler, how important is it to have a guy like that who can come up big in big spots?
He's just a tremendous player. I've said it all year. He's that guy that when you coach him every day and you see him in practice every day, and you see how consistent he is, he's the model of consistency in everything that he does -- base running, outfield play -- everything he does.
And guys like that sometimes fly under the radar, but I think it's hard for Jonny Butler to fly under the radar. I think people started taking notice of him midway through the season. And he's just a tremendous player, who continues to play better and better.
Every member of the team reached base today. What would you say about how everyone contributed?
It's always been a team win with us. That's the way it's been all year. We played -- the last three months, it's no secret, we played nine guys pretty much every day. Murr likes to say it's nine guys from nine states. And they've all throughout the year, I said it at the beginning of the year, this is a team that throughout the lineup can figure out how to be productive and score runs. And that's the name of the game.
And we scored in different ways, because we can bunt, we can run, we can hit with power, hit gaps, singles. And we just do it in different ways. When you get to this stage with all the quality pitching that's out there in the country, you have to be able to be versatile to score runs in this environment. And I think that's, once again, that showed.
How much of a boost does it give you guys to be able to count on Evan Justice?
It's not just the quality of stuff that Evan has. It's his work ethic; it's everything that these guys have seen each other do all long. Luca Tresh comes in before everybody an hour early and he's caught every game this year to keep his body in tremendous shape. And Evan Justice, the things that he does with treatment from Scott Ensell and all the things he does to prepare himself for these situations.
So they're talking about they know the preparation, they know the work ethic, and then they know the will to win and how the intensity with which Evan goes about his business, but is still able to relax to the situation. And he shows great poise and confidence in himself. So we have that confidence in Evan, but we have that confidence in a lot of people right now.
You guys hit two home runs today. Does it feel like this park plays bigger?
The ball that [Devonte Brown] hit, even though I thought he got it off the end a little bit, when he hit it I thought it was gone. It reminded me of the ball Trea Turner left in the ballpark back against UCLA in 2013.
We noticed the ball was carrying a bit better in BP today, and obviously it carried a little bit better during the game. This is definitely carrying a bit better than it has at Omaha from what I remember in 2013.
