Latest / Coaches Corner / Jim Penders on the Rob Dibble Show May 28
Transcript
- Do you feel lucky? Is that what it is? Are you feeling like a lucky guy today getting into this tournament or it knew it all along? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I am, and I'm not saying this. I mean I sat through that yesterday with a lot of optimism. I feel like we've earned our way in, I mean with the schedule and what we did, but you know, we feel fortunate. I felt unlucky on three other days where we watched that in two thousand and six to twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen, we were the first four out, so I felt I actually felt really good after Saturday's games mostly went our way. You know, the favorite won their conference tournaments and there were very few big Steelers. The last time we went through it in seventeen, we needed like we were watching nine games in the last two days and two of them turned out the good way and seven went bad. And this year was kind of the reverse. So it's kind of payback. And I was thinking about those guys from oh, six, fifteen and seventeen yesterday. You know, it was kind of nice to be able to, you know, redeem ourselves and get back, and you know, I feel like we feel like we're fortunate and that the program has built. It's in a different place now like with our stature nationally, and that may have benefited us. But I don't want to take anything away from this team either, because I thought they truly earn their way in was really good baseball in April and May talking to coach Jim Pender's yukon baseball going to the NCAA Tournament for the sixth straight time and ten of the last fourteen years, Like you were talking about how'd you draw? I mean, you know some of these teams are Roberts, Oklahoma, Duke. What do you know about them? And you played Duke on Friday. Yeah, we're learning a lot about them now. I mean I rooted for Duke for the first time in my lifetime on Saturday. They had to beat Miami for us, and they did that. Now, sure enough we've got to face them, you know, less than less than a week later. But they're very well coached and they are a juggernaut of an offense. I mean, they can really really hit. They hit the long ball, big swings, they go for it very aggressive. So I you know, we're gonna have our hands full there, certainly kind of glad to see the win should be blowing. In baseball, coaches become amateur meteorologists when it comes to the wind, and I think that may benefit us a little bit. But they're they're a very good offense and they've got some good arms too, but you know, kind of a juggernaut offensively. And Oklahoma is very different in that they're super aggressive on the base paths. They are they want to go first to third. They've got a lot of teams speed, they know how to use it, two big time starters and a solid bullpen too, So we'll have you know, those two guys are really really tough and Oral Roberts, I mean they're hot. They just come off a conference championship and they went to Omaha last year. I mean that's eleven and a half months ago they were in Omaha, so you know, and they're also extremely well coached. They do a great job over there. So it's a tough draw, but I mean, I think every draw in the tournament is a tough draw. I was looking at Duke today doing my own personal skying report. You are right, So they have seven players that have over forty games, some of six players have over fifty games that are hitting above three hundred in their lineup. Their lead off guy Zach Morris, by the way, save by the bell, Zach Morris. Guys, you'll love that name. But the other one I saw, coach was Ryan Higgins, because I was trying to figure out your Friday starter who you might be going up against on the mound for the Duke Blue Devils, and I saw this Higgins guy, and I noticed from New Canaan, Connecticut, like, Wow, what are the odds that Yukon might be matched up with a kid that pitched here in the state and his high school career? Is that the case? Are you expecting to see Higgs? And do you know about this kid before you play him? We don't know who we're going to face yet. They haven't announced that. You know, I wouldn't be shocked if we saw him. You know, we're still learning a lot about him, uh, you know, to be honest with you, they we did recruit u Chad Knight, who was on their rosters, a little Leap World series hero from Westport, and he he was on our campus. I think is an eighth grader as a matter of fact, So I know a little bit more you know about him, and I know, you know, Higgins transferred in you know, to to Duke. We don't know quite as much about about him. But we're learning stuff, you know, by the minute, getting a lot of phone calls from people around the country that want to help us, and you know, making some of those phone calls to getting scouting reports. But you know, oftentimes, I mean, our guys are going to have a lot more information after the first time around the order than we could get any scouting report. But uh, you know, we'll learn. We'll learn an awful lot next few days and do our homework. Right now, we're just trying to get all the logistics ironed out. We're going to logan for a five thirty am flight tomorrow in order to keep us all together. The NCAAY had us on like three or four different flights and didn't like that idea because we didn't want to get stranded and tull Tulsa somewhere else. So we're all going together tonight and going to stay stay at the airport hotel and just walk down to the gates in the early morning hours. Wanted to talk to you about your pitching staff. I mean, does getting knocked out early from the Big East tournament help you at all and how you lined up for the tournament. I don't know if it helps our hurts, you know, you know, Rob, you just want to keep playing and stay in that rhythm. But I do feel like, you know, we're lined up just fine. I mean, we've got three, we really have four quality starters and gave Van m and numbers haven't been there, but he's he's been in a good place lately. And we have four starters who have all started NCAA tournament games. You know, Gabe did it on the Division III level, but did it in the College World Series and Division three last year. So you know, I think that's uh, I think that's really great. And I don't know how many people could say, you know, how many coaches in this tournament could say they have four starters that have nta a baseball you know experience. So you know, I'm excited about it, very excited about about our chances there. I'm a huge go ahead, go sorry, no, that's okay. Yeah. I Also I misspoke on Haigen, don't know. I was thinking about the other kids. Another kids he's he started at Duke. He didn't transferring, So, like I said, it's we're working progress right now, trying to gather information. We did. Incidentally, we did not to look too far ahead, but we we actually got a lot more information on Oklahoma prior to Duke. So Josh McDonald's working on Duke right now and trying to trying to gather I'm getting my wires cross, trying to figure out, you know, trying to keep them all straight, all three potential opponents straight. I was a huge fan of Brian Padilla getting that big hit to keep the game alive and really put you guys on top and the unfortunate ending against Georgetown and the loser's back at the big He's just a big fan of him, and I thought that was a big moment where you had one of your senior leaders really step up for the team. We've been screaming the praises at Garrett co on the mound. A guy that's really stepped up as a senior leader on your team. Do you find that more here at the end of the season, the guys that are playing maybe their last games of organized baseball really come through in the clutch for you when it comes to tournament time. Yeah, you know, TC Simmons is a guy, he's been around the block a bunch and Jake Studdley was under the weather last weekend, so TC went in there, did a solid job. And Gerritko, Yeah, he's our leader. He's just our emotional leader, or you know, just if there's a brawl that breaks out, you know, he's the enforcer. He's enormous, and he's just he's a great kid. And I think you know, of all the teams, you know, all sixty four teams, you're going to find if you were I mean I haven't done this, but if you were going to do a median age of those teams, I bet you it's going to tend to be closer to twenty three, twenty two and up in that range. For the guys that are actually contributing late in the season. You know, it's with the transfer portal and with nil, with the grad years, with the COVID years, all those things that's conspired to get a lot of older guys men, you know, not boys anymore, but men on the field, like a Luke Broadhurst, who's you know, twenty five years old. You know he has he has Little League teammates that are you know, the Josh Simpsons and he's made the big leagues. You know, Jimmy Titus was a little league teammate of his, and Jimmy's retired from professional baseball, and Luke's still playing college ball. It's pretty remarkable. So, but you're going to find the teams I think that have the most success or the are the older teams. You know, they just have more experience, and we're certainly going to on that experience. You know this this coming weekend talking to Jim Pender's head coach ucon Baseball. One of the things I love about your coaches you do like the old school style hitting and the stealing bases, the hit and run stuff like that. You guys are way ahead of like the major leaguers right now as far as traditional baseball. But you know that that's been one of your biggest things is how you run the bases, how your guys are are so fundamentally sound. Can you talk to like our listeners and some of the coaches out there at the high school level and maybe below on this is the kind of guys you're trying to recruit for your program? Sure, yeah, I mean we will find a lot there's a lot of freshmen that have no idea how to bunt. You know, they're all the guys who are All League, All Conference, All Galaxy in their own minds, and they haven't had that bunt in years. And they get here and they realize they're not going to get on the field unless they know out a bunt. Everybody in the lineup has to be able to sacrifice bunt, get a suicide, squeeze down that type of thing. Guys that have speed, we really work on bunning for hits and a major league level. I don't blame them because the stats, the analytics back them up and say, you don't want to give up on your twenty seven outs and let's play for the free rerunt homer. It doesn't necessarily correlate to college baseball. You know, the bunted ball is not necessarily an easy play to make at our level, and you know, so it's not an automatic out. So I think excuse to be you know, certainly more useful at our level. So we do tend to play a little bit of small ball. We are sometimes aggressive to a fault on the basis i'd rather, you know, I'd always rather have to tone a guy down than tune him up. And you know, I'd rather say, you know, pull back the reins then have to encourage them to come on, let's get going, let's go, let's go first the third. But you know, we do it. We have a tendency to sometimes get get thrown out on the basis but I'd rather, I'd rather have to tone them down, you know, I just that's silent play that we want to force the action. You know, we had a couple opportunities to execute this past weekend and a couple of times we got it done. A couple of times we didn't, you know, it popped up a bunt. We did have a successful hit run. And those those things have to be there, you know, you've got to have them in your tool belt, and the guy's got to be able to produce, you know, when it's when that when that's called for, when the player is called for, they've got to be able to execute it. Yukon taking on Duke. It's a twelve forty five pre game, one of the first games to get started in the Road to Omaha. Coach, I'm a huge fan of this bracket, this tournament, the Road to Omaha as it is. I know Dibbs and kurd are as well, and I just wish the rest of the country would get around to it like they do March Madness when the basketball tournament comes. Because this thing, like you said, chalk full major leaguers, chalk four great programs. But for U Khan individually and for you personally, what does it mean for a trip to omahall for this program and for you with this group of guys. Oh, you know, it would be a dream come true. I mean not just for me, but for everybody in our dugout and everybody associated with our program, from you know, Doug Elliott through the guy I mean this guys from the nineteen fifties that I heard from via text message or email that are still following us. You know, in the nineteen sixties, my father was at the selection show. He was on the sixty five College World Series team, and you know he's going to be he's closing it on eighty two years old. I got to get the old man back to Nebraska. So we we got to get that done. And and you know, I feel like, hey, we're we should be playing very loose and liquid. Nobody expected us to be here but us, our head's been in the guillotine since February and early March. Everybody, now, this is Yukon stinks this year. They're not going to get it done. And and the guys refused to quit. And so you know, I love that that spirit that we have in our dugout or around our program. And you know, we proceeded to win every single Big East weekend. The first time we lost back to back Big East games was in the Big East Tournament unfortunately, but I believe in these guys and anything is possible. We've got a really tough road, like you said, but I would never bet against my guys and looking forward to seeing what they can do on on a big stage. Well, jimm, you know, we're a huge supporters and backers of the program. So man, God blessed safe travels and uh, you know, get to Omaha. You got it. Thanks so much, guys, and you guys are great to us, and we really appreciate the support support and hopefully people listen in and follow the Huskis and one of the best things that we can do when we're playing in the postseason is just extend our awesome Yukon Nation brand. Chronologically, you know, a little bit deeper into the calendar and keep keep people talking about the Huskies. And we take that responsibility, you know, as as a real honor. And hopefully we can we can be extending the brand almost to July. That'll mean a successful run in Omar.