May 25, 2006

ACC Baseball Championship
Game 6
Miami 4, Wake Forest 1

Miami Quotes

Miami coach Jim Morris

Opening statement
First of all I want to congratulate Wake Forest on their season. It's a tough league. It's amazing. I grew up in North Carolina and this was a basketball conference. It's now a baseball conference. You can check the rankings. It's amazing how tough the league is, day in, day out. This is a huge, huge win for us, I feel like, to help us have the possibility of hosting (an NCAA regional). We do have a good bid in. We felt like we had to come in here and win one or two games to put ourselves in a position to be able to host. We needed a big effort from our pitching in particular today. Manny (Miguelez) pitched an outstanding game. He was our player of the game today and that was huge. Of course, Jon Jay had another big day, with his home run. Roger Tomas played very good today, made a big play with the bases loaded. I don't know if it looked easy or not, but that was a tough play. Dennis Raben had a great day. We had a lot of guys who played solid defense again and we got the good pitching. Of course Chris Perez got the save there at the end and did a very good job. It was a team effort. That's what it takes, it's a team game. We have to do little things to be able to win. We've had trouble scoring runs here in this ballpark, and to get four runs and do the things we did today is big for us.

On Miami getting its first win at the ACC Tournament
To me it's a big win. Our RPI before this game was 13, and we want to host. We want to be back in Coral Gables like everyone wants to be at home. Everyone that's in the tournament put a bid in except one team, if I'm not mistaken, for the regionals, and they're not going to give all seven of us an NCAA Tournament. So we're all fighting each other not only for the standings and the RPIs and the rankings, but to be able to host, also. So every win is something that's very, very important.

On Manny Miguelez' performance given his recent struggles
He's struggled lately. A couple months, that seems like a long time. But he started out hot, no question. Manny has good enough stuff to beat anybody in the country, as long as Manny understands that and goes after people like he did today. That's the thing, he got ahead of hitters, he didn't hurt himself by walking guys or doing anything, and he pitched very good. He was able to get three pitches, or four pitches over the plate. When he does that and throws strikes with his stuff, then he's got a chance to beat anyone, and he did that today. It was huge for us.

On sticking with Miguelez despite the recent struggles
The potential is there, there's no question about it. We need him to win, and if we're going to go any further, whether it's here or the NCAA Tournament, Manny Miguelez has got to win for us. There are certain guys that have to step it up. I think Manny's one of those guys, and we expect to win in the NCAA Tournament in Miami, and we've got to have certain guys win. He's one of our starters, he's got to get it done. Just like Jon Jay's got to get it done and certain guys.

Miami sophomore LHP Manny Miguelez

On how he felt today
I just felt that I had all my stuff today. Everything was going for strikes. I didn't make any mental mistakes on the field, so that helped, too. I made all my fielding plays that I had struggled with that last couple of games and I just stayed positive the whole game and threw it how I had to throw.

On the difference between his last game against Wake Forest and today
Just getting ahead of guys, basically. I fell behind a lot (in the previous meeting) and then I would have to just come down the middle and that's when I got hurt. I was just getting ahead of everybody basically, and just staying ahead the whole game. That's the difference.

Miami junior CF Jon Jay

On how Miami matches up against either Clemson or Georgia Tech
At this point in the season, every team is just as good as everyone else. As long as we play our game, it doesn't matter who we're playing against. As long as we do the little things, we pitch, we hit and play good defense, we feel that we can beat anybody. We just look at it like that. We don't care who we play right now. We just want to go out there and play our game.

On Miami being able to get some offense in this park
We definitely struggled here last year. I think today we got a couple of big hits in big situations, which is what we needed to do to win. That didn't happen against Georgia Tech. We've just got to keep coming up with big hits at crucial times, and as long as our pitching's there, we can win.

Wake Forest Quotes

Wake Forest hear coach Rick Rembielak

Opening Statement
Looking at our ball club, the last couple weeks have been pretty rough for us offensively. We have not sustained anything offensively and nothing has rolled over from hitter to hitter. If we did get a couple hits or a couple runs, we didn't execute on the pitching side. It has been a combination of a few things for us and we just could not get on track over the last couple of weekends. It's been pretty challenging for our offense and it just rolled right into the tournament this year.

It's the time of the year too; I think it started during the series at Miami. We had a decent series, the first game was a blowout, but overall it was a pretty decent series. Then we went into Clemson and hit a buzz saw there. Hitting just seems to be a rollover effect, it kind of snowballs itself. It seems with us, a couple of guys struggled at the top of the lineup and it just rolled right into the rest of the lineup. We just could not really get anybody on track.

On having the bases loaded twice
It takes all the air out of the balloon. You fill it up and you just don't produce at all in those situations and it really, from an offensive standpoint, when you are struggling that badly and you can't come out with at least one run in those situations, it really deflates the psyche of those hitters and the whole club.

Wake Forest Matt Antonelli

On Miami pitcher Manny Miguelez
I thought he was the same as he was last time. The first time we played them we were just hitting the ball much better. We have just been struggling for the last few weeks and unfortunately we just could not get anything going. We had a few hits here and there but we could not get the big one, the key hit.