Latest / Coaches Corner / UConn Baseball Coach Jim Penders w Ben Darnell - May 4

Transcript

UConn Baseball Coach Jim Penders w Ben Darnell - May 4 · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Great to talk to this guy. Welcome back to the Rob Double Show.
• 0:03
  Ben Darnel Kirk Kaplin holding the four for the big Guys. He is in
• 0:06
  Cincinnati with the rest of the Nasty Boys signing autographs for the weekend, so
• 0:10
  he will be back on Monday. But I'm so happy to get Coach Pender's
• 0:13
  UK head baseball coach on the program today to catch up. We got a
• 0:17
  big weekend coming up and don't look now, yukon baseballs in top tens and
• 0:22
  a lot of polls across America thirty two and eleven. They're eight and three
• 0:26
  in conference play. No midweek this week, Coach, like, that's kind
• 0:30
  of a luxury that you don't usually get. What did you end up doing
• 0:33
  or what did the guys end up doing on the no midweek week? Well,
• 0:38
  first of all, thanks for having me, been always good to be
• 0:39
  with you. Give my best to Rob when he gets back. But we
• 0:44
  had to do that other thing that student athletes occasionally have to do, and
• 0:48
  that was take exams. They were in finals all week, so we never
• 0:52
  schedule, you know, any non conference games during our final exam period.
• 0:59
  And thankfully we're coming to an end on that and guys will be done.
• 1:03
  I think there's a couple of guys with Saturday exam Saturday morning, and then
• 1:08
  they'll all be in the rearview mirror and they can hopefully just concentrate on baseball.
• 1:12
  And it's always a fun time of year when they can kind of pretend
• 1:15
  to just be professional players for a little bit and only worry about winning games.
• 1:19
  So looking forward to having that that time upon us. And we'll get
• 1:25
  a really good opponent, very hot Seaton Hall team coming in here this weekend
• 1:29
  for what we hope will be a great series for us. We're again into
• 1:33
  the pirates of the rest of the Big East play And I just got to
• 1:34
  stop down and talk about the athletic department, really the whole gamut of athletics
• 1:40
  over there at Yukon because the APRS, the Education reports came out just the
• 1:45
  other day and like flying colors all across the board, and that's got to
• 1:49
  make you feel proud of what you've done with your program as student athletes.
• 1:53
  But also that's gotta be a lot of pressure. Man. It feels like
• 1:55
  a lot of them sports they put up those thousand marks and that's hard to
• 1:57
  compete with. Sure is I mean, my colleagues do a great job here,
• 2:02
  and but it really I mean the credit goes to the student athletes first,
• 2:07
  and then they have an incredible support staff. Year two, I mean,
• 2:09
  we've got a counselor who helps these guys out our names Victorias Sigmon.
• 2:14
  Often she does a remarkable job of staying on top of their schedules. And
• 2:20
  you know, we miss with the amount of class with the amount of travel
• 2:23
  that we have to do. I think we left on February. Our first
• 2:29
  first game was the weekend of February sixteenth and down in Florida, we flew
• 2:35
  out on the fifteenth. Since the fifteenth of February until our last class day,
• 2:40
  which was last Friday, the guys have missed almost two thirds of the
• 2:45
  class days, which is really and it's ridiculous when you think about it.
• 2:50
  And that's how much travel we have to do, and to stay on top
• 2:53
  of their studies is remarkable and they've done a very good job of that and
• 2:58
  they do get help. And this is a very competitive place. You know,
• 3:01
  it's not like they're giving away three yos. They're not falling off of
• 3:06
  trees here. You know, it's a very competitive place, and a lot
• 3:09
  of valedictorians are in classes, a lot of salutatorians are in classes with our
• 3:14
  guys every day. And so just like it's competitive on the ball field and
• 3:17
  the courts and every athletic arena here, it's very competitive, most competitive in
• 3:23
  the classrooms and stores. So yeah, proud of our guys and you know,
• 3:28
  proud of all the programs here with the APR Lalkney Jim Penners, Yukon
• 3:31
  baseball head coach. All right, tell me a little bit about Seaton Hall
• 3:35
  really get into the Big East and just what you think of the conference this
• 3:38
  year in twenty twenty three. Well, first of all, Seaton Hall is
• 3:40
  really good. I mean they're well coached. Going up against the guy that
• 3:44
  I played against, we go back a long way and Robbie Shepard and his
• 3:47
  father, Mike, legendary skipper for Seaton Hall, was a coach when when
• 3:53
  I was playing. And Robbie worked for his dad for a long time and
• 3:57
  he's been the headman for quite some time now, so we have a really
• 4:00
  good rivalry. I mean, I remember watching Seaton Hall Yukon when I was
• 4:04
  in high school. In middle school, I remember watching Movan and Martie Robinson
• 4:09
  and Bigo and Jeff Riggs and all these great player Danon Brown and great players
• 4:15
  John Vallentin go up against you know, the Charles Naggi's and Pete Walkers and
• 4:20
  all those guys. They had some real wars Muzzy Field back in the day
• 4:25
  in Bristol and the BIGG East Tournament. I know everybody still talks about the
• 4:30
  move on home run going over the trees and right field at Muzzy disappearing into
• 4:34
  the night back in I think it was eighty seven or eighty eight. And
• 4:40
  we have a really good rivalry with these guys, so they're gonna be ready
• 4:43
  to go there. They've won six or seven. They're very hot. They
• 4:46
  got off to kind of a slow start, but they played a very challenging
• 4:47
  schedule, much like we do in the early season, so they're tested and
• 4:51
  they're not going to come in here intimidated for one second. They've got a
• 4:57
  lot of team speed. They have three guys as over twenty stolen bases.
• 5:01
  They put the ball in play. You're not going to see a ton of
• 5:04
  power from them. But they also have some really good arms, some guys
• 5:08
  that have been throwing strikes and maximizing. They got a brand new pitching coach
• 5:13
  there's appears to have done an excellent job and getting getting their guys to be
• 5:18
  very effective on the mound. They've got a lot of guys who are back
• 5:20
  and some experience and he's really shaped them. So, you know, not
• 5:26
  a good time to get Seaton Hall when they're hot. But you know,
• 5:29
  we're hoping that hopefully the home field advantage will be real this weekend and that
• 5:32
  people turn out. We need to get some more tickets sold. We've got
• 5:36
  to. I think we're around six or seven hundred sold for Friday night and
• 5:42
  doing a little better for Saturday and Sunday. But we're hoping people will come
• 5:45
  out, especially as students on Friday, you know, finishing up exams,
• 5:48
  hoping that they'll come out and support us and make it a little tougher for
• 5:51
  Seaton Hall to perform. But the Big East as a whole very competitive.
• 5:57
  You know, Crayton's leading the league. They're half game ahead of us.
• 6:00
  They swept at Butler last week and we weren't able to play all three of
• 6:05
  our games at going Ova and we took two of the games, we didn't
• 6:09
  get to play the third dude Weather and Creighton edged out Butler to take over
• 6:14
  first place. So fortunately we still have Creating on the schedule, fortunately or
• 6:18
  unfortunately out in Omaha on the last weekend, and but we gotta get through.
• 6:24
  We're gotta get through Seaton Hall first and then Butler comes in here next
• 6:27
  weekend. So hopefully we can have a productive homestand and put ourselves in contention
• 6:31
  to potentially host an NCAA regional. Here I was going to ask you that
• 6:34
  potentially hosting an nc double A region. I was just at D one baseball
• 6:39
  dot com. I was checking out their predictions, their bracketology, and it's
• 6:43
  got It seems like it's an an inevitable region that Boston College, Yukon,
• 6:48
  Northeastern and possibly CCSU or whoever fills out that fourth spot. It's gonna be
• 6:54
  a pod of some sort, or at least that's kind of the thought,
• 6:57
  and especially everybody where they are approx lea next to each other. But do
• 7:01
  you think you have like can I keep on pushing this issue? Should I
• 7:04
  keep on running my mouth about you co hosting? Or is this just don't
• 7:09
  waste your Brett Darnel, Boston College is going to get it because the NCAA
• 7:12
  likes them better. No, you know, I think we've got a great
• 7:15
  opportunity in front of us. I mean, I think one of the things
• 7:18
  that prognosticators have to do is they get a look at the RPI, and
• 7:21
  Boston College has a lot more RPI points left on their schedules that they can
• 7:26
  go grab. So I think they probably have an inside track, to be
• 7:29
  perfectly honest, and the legitimate one. They're a very good team. But
• 7:33
  you know, I think we got a good chance too. I mean,
• 7:35
  there's nothing against There's nothing in the NCAA regulation say we can't have two regionals
• 7:41
  in New England. And maybe the first time it happened, but there's nothing,
• 7:46
  you know, nothing says we can't. So we're gonna have to really
• 7:48
  be hot and finish very very strong to to do that. But I'd love,
• 7:54
  I know, I'd love to see it. I think it's lunacy that
• 7:58
  they might put all four of those teams in a regional together. I mean,
• 8:03
  you know, if they're trying to see this one through sixty four,
• 8:05
  there's absolutely no way in heck that that the four of us should be together.
• 8:11
  Um, you know, Northeastern might be the best team we played all
• 8:13
  year. And I mean that. I mean they're they're just loaded top to
• 8:16
  bottom. Their lineup is really really tough and talented, and their pitching staff
• 8:22
  is excellent. They've been statistically one of the best teams in the country defensively,
• 8:26
  offensively and on the mound. So m you know, as could be
• 8:31
  made that all three of us should be hosting UM, and I think that's
• 8:35
  you know, you don't often seem three. I don't know if we've ever
• 8:39
  seen three New England teams in the top twenty five at this time of year.
• 8:43
  So I think that's pretty impressive and something Northeastern and BC should be proud
• 8:46
  of too. So UM, you know, hopefully we will get that opportunity
• 8:50
  to let up Elliot Ballpark and have a great, great turnout, because I
• 8:54
  think if the three of us did get that opportunity, I know in my
• 8:58
  heart of hearts that we'd have the best attended regional of those three for sure.
• 9:01
  I know it's always fluctuating how close are you to having your pitching staff
• 9:07
  lockdown in their specific assignments. If you were to start a regional this weekend,
• 9:11
  certainly closer than we were two weeks ago. Things have started to gel
• 9:16
  a little bit after we played really, I guess I could point back to
• 9:22
  the Boston College game about two and a half weeks ago now as a turning
• 9:26
  point. We really had a good pitching effort up there. A bunch of
• 9:30
  guys got in and did a good job. And I think then we've been
• 9:33
  kind of holding that momentum and pitched very well over our past past two Bigget
• 9:41
  series against Georgetown and then this past weekend at On. All of us so
• 9:45
  feel strong about the way it's shaping up. I think it took us a
• 9:48
  little bit longer than usual to find our three starters. I think we've got
• 9:52
  them in the right order right now. Andrew Sears has been clicking on all
• 9:56
  cylinders last few times out looking for we're just seeing handing him the ball tomorrow
• 10:01
  night. And Stephen Quigley also, you know, coming off his best start
• 10:05
  in our uniform down at Villanova. Um and Cook, you know, Cook's
• 10:09
  battled a couple um you know, we want to call him. He's a
• 10:13
  little little uh, you know, numbness at times and just not feeling one
• 10:18
  hundred percent. But he seems to have worked through that and he looks healthier,
• 10:24
  He's in better shape, and I feel like he's he's poised to be
• 10:26
  the next guy to kind of break out. It was Sears then quickly and
• 10:30
  now it's Ian's turn to have a stellar outing on Sunday and looking forward to
• 10:35
  also playing three single games. This will be the first big East as Londons.
• 10:39
  The fourt caunis doesn't drastically change, but this will be the first big
• 10:43
  East weekend um that we will have had. We've played four of them and
• 10:46
  we've had to play doubleheaders, and all of them due to weather and also
• 10:50
  to the Saint John's not being able to play on Good Friday on campus.
• 10:52
  So um, I think we're the only school that can say that we've played
• 10:56
  doubleheaders every weekend. So looking forward to not having to, you know,
• 11:00
  to be out there for seven and eight hours, you know, to try
• 11:05
  to win a series in one day. Friday against Seaton Hall started seven thirty
• 11:07
  five. First pitch on Saturday is four h five and then a two thirty
• 11:13
  first pitch on Sunday for you guys to get out there to Elliott Ballpark and
• 11:16
  check out yukon Seaton Hall. I got to know more about this player coach.
• 11:20
  It's one of our producer Kurt Kaplan's favorites, probably because of his last
• 11:24
  name. Dominic Freeburger is just having a great year transfer from unc Asheville.
• 11:28
  When I saw you got this kid, I knew he was going to be
• 11:31
  at least a part of the success. I didn't know how big a part.
• 11:35
  And man, he has really come through for he's batting right around the
• 11:39
  three four spot in your lineup, three fifty six with his average forty seven
• 11:41
  RBIs. You're gonna love this, Kurt, zero point zero zero R.
• 11:46
  That's right. He comes on the mound every now and then, but he's
• 11:48
  only throwing what four games I think for your coach. But yeah, he's
• 11:52
  your show. Hey, he's your show. Hey, O, Tony,
• 11:54
  I I need to know more about Dominic Freeburger. Well, he's just a
• 11:58
  really tough kid. He fits into our ethos extraordinarily. Well, he's a
• 12:03
  team first oriented guy. And you know he was he was down in Nashville.
• 12:07
  They didn't you know, he had great seasons down there, but they
• 12:09
  didn't do a ton of winning. And I think he's getting taste of winning
• 12:15
  on a national stage and he's just gotten better. The brighter the lights,
• 12:18
  the better. He is very cerebral player, really knows the game, knows
• 12:24
  how to run bases. You know, he can play center field, he
• 12:28
  can catch a little bit, he can play first base, he could play
• 12:31
  short in a pinch. And you said it. I mean, he's our
• 12:33
  secret weapon on the mound. He might be our most effective reliever. We
• 12:37
  just hate taking him off of third base, much like we had when Nick
• 12:41
  Ahmad was here. We didn't want to take him out of short stop.
• 12:43
  Don plays such a great third base that we don't want to take him out,
• 12:48
  you know, of the lineup, and certainly not out defensively, so
• 12:52
  we've probably gonna he's gonna score of him down the stretch. You know,
• 12:56
  we want to keep him healthy during the year. But now as we get
• 13:00
  down a crunch time, um, you know, there's no reason to keep
• 13:03
  him under wraps. He threw a really effective inning yesterday in our inter squad
• 13:07
  here on campus, and I'm looking forward to, you know, hopefully using
• 13:09
  him a little bit this weekend. But uh yeah, great last name too.
• 13:13
  He's a tough kid from Baltimore, in the city down there, and
• 13:18
  uh just uh, we're really fortunate that he that he came to US and
• 13:22
  one of my favorite stories about Dom is that he committed to US. UM.
• 13:26
  He had been up to campus visited with his family's mom and his uncle
• 13:28
  came up and Um and we had a good recruiting visit. But took him
• 13:33
  a while to decide if he if you really wanted to do it and use
• 13:37
  that extra year at Yukon. And he decided at the very beginning of last
• 13:43
  season for Asheville, and he asked us to keep it a secret, which
• 13:46
  of course we would. He didn't want it. He did not want to
• 13:50
  distract from his team's mission and didn't want his own teammates to know UM that
• 13:56
  he wasn't coming back. You know. He wanted to make sure that that
• 13:58
  he terror business there first, and he was a leader on that team.
• 14:01
  And I just said at the time, I'm thinking, Wow, we got
• 14:05
  a different type of this is give not a guy who wants to throw it
• 14:07
  up on the internet and instagram it and snapchatt. He this kid is real
• 14:11
  and he's kind of a throwback to a different era and I just love that
• 14:16
  he's competing for us. He's a he is a true blue Husky, even
• 14:22
  though he's only been here for about eight nine months now. Totally agree.
• 14:26
  I love watching him play. You can see him this weekend again a Friday
• 14:28
  Saturday Sunday series against Seaton Hall on the campus of Stores. Coach As Dibbs
• 14:33
  is not here. We typically do this in the baseball season once a month,
• 14:37
  and today's the day. So we're wondering if you could fill in on
• 14:41
  a little fair and foul where we ask you questions of what's going on in
• 14:45
  Major League Baseball at this moment and you tell us if you like it or
• 14:48
  if you don't like it. Are you cool with that? You can say
• 14:50
  no comment. If you want to say no comment, that's no. Let's
• 14:54
  let's do it. Did you see Wander Franco six three put out where he
• 14:58
  does little and one base ball spins the ball in the end that I heard
• 15:03
  about? I missed it, though, Do you what do you think about
• 15:05
  that? Like, let's just imagine Padilla is shuffling off to his left and
• 15:09
  then does a little spin with the baseball, catches it and throws the guy
• 15:13
  out. Are you saying anything to him? Is he coming out of the
• 15:15
  game? What does coach Penders say about that move? He might be coming
• 15:20
  out of the game depending on the score and what's happened previously. You know,
• 15:24
  the rule of thumb that we have in our program is act like you've
• 15:28
  been there before, and you know, act like you've done it a million
• 15:31
  times, and let everybody else you know. I tell our guys this,
• 15:33
  I want to hear the good news. I want to hear the bad news.
• 15:37
  You get a bad grade on a test, or you know something,
• 15:41
  you made a bad decision on a Thursday, and I need to hear that
• 15:43
  from you, directly from you. But let let me hear the good news
• 15:48
  or learn the good news about you from somebody else. So let's make the
• 15:52
  play and let somebody else tell me how great it was. I'd love that.
• 15:54
  We'll mark that one down as foul from coach Pender. Yeah, memo
• 15:58
  just got released from Rob Manford. Twenty four hour notice for a standing ovation
• 16:04
  in Major League Baseball. This is coming after thirteen year minor league vet Madgie
• 16:10
  gets his first start or first hit for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Fair or foul
• 16:14
  twenty four hour notice before a standing oh is done at a baseball game.
• 16:18
  What Yeah, that was Dibble's reaction. Twenty four hour notice before you get
• 16:27
  a standing Yeah, you gotta let you gotta let the ball park know you're
• 16:30
  gonna do a standing ovation twenty four hours ahead of time. That way we
• 16:34
  can adjust the pitch clock. That's fall. All right, We'll leave it
• 16:41
  at that. Here's one of our favorite Major League Baseball players we'd love watching
• 16:45
  hit, not really play. Daniel Vogelbach clocks in at two seventy his weight
• 16:49
  coach fair or foul too seventy on a baseball player. You know what,
• 16:55
  I think it's fair. I think we're one of the only only games you
• 17:00
  obviously, you know it's not how you look in the airport in baseball.
• 17:04
  You know, it's nice to have guys that look decent walking through the airport.
• 17:07
  But at the end of the day, um, you know, there's
• 17:11
  only certain body types you see on a basketball court. You know, there's
• 17:14
  only certain body types you're going to see on a tennis courts or um.
• 17:18
  You know, but if you're if you're five for you look at Kirk for
• 17:21
  the Blue Jays. You look at him in the uniform. I mean,
• 17:23
  he's not gonna get any modeling gigs in the offseason, but the guy can
• 17:27
  play. And you know, I think it's it's it's you see, all
• 17:32
  different shapes and sizes be effective in our game, and I kind of like
• 17:34
  it that way, all right. Last one for you, coach. Rumor
• 17:37
  has it Yukon Baseball will be selling beer at the ballpark this weekend against Seaton
• 17:42
  Hall. Fair foul from coach Benders. It's fair, you know, in
• 17:47
  two dollars Miller Lights on on Friday night. You know, so, I
• 17:52
  know the basketball had a lot of success with that promotion and Miller Light was
• 17:56
  really happy with it, and we're glad for that because they're going to do
• 17:59
  it again at a base ball game on Friday, and um, you know
• 18:02
  it's uh, I think it's it's good for our fans. You know,
• 18:04
  you know there are some some uh you know obviously some adults that enjoy a
• 18:10
  beer at the ball game, and um, yeah, it's fair and it's
• 18:14
  I think it's also helped our attendance a little bit and I'm all for it.
• 18:18
  Um, you know, we've got but it's also you know, people
• 18:21
  do need to know it's it's very much a family friendly environment. We've got
• 18:25
  the grass berm. Every fall ball that goes up on the grass berm.
• 18:29
  You know, there's a scrum for it with every you know, it seems
• 18:32
  like every seven year old to thirteen year old boys printing for the for the
• 18:37
  baseballs. They go over the net and on the berm and it's it's just
• 18:40
  a really good family environment to take the kids out to and they do a
• 18:45
  good job with him between inning promotions, and I think people will be excited
• 18:48
  to see the ballpark too. So hopefully the listeners come out this weekend and
• 18:53
  cheer on the Huskies and realize that, you know, when basketball goes away,
• 18:56
  there's still a lot to cheer for up at yukonom And we've got a
• 19:00
  couple of nationally ranting programs right in the same building with me, with women's
• 19:03
  lacrosse starting their postseason softball, Laura Valentino's team is doing an awesome job right
• 19:10
  now and leaving the Big East, so lots more to cheer four into May
• 19:15
  and hopefully deep into June. In Oski Land seven thirty five on Friday Tomorrow
• 19:21
  night under the lights, as coach said, two dollars beers from Miller Lights,
• 19:25
  Seaton Hall on Saturday four oh five with that star time and first pitch
• 19:29
  two thirty on Sunday, three days to get out there to the ballpark.
• 19:33
  Should be some good weather here this weekend. It's definitely gonna be some good
• 19:36
  baseball. Coach. Thanks for the time, good luck the rest of the
• 19:37
  way. Hopefully we'll be talking about hosting the regional here soon. Awesome from
• 19:42
  your lips to God's years. Thanks a lot, then,