College World Series: Oklahoma coach Skip Johnson, players react to win over Texas A&M, advancing to finals

“I thought Sandlin set the tone early, throwing one pitch at a time. We talked about this. We actually practiced it the other day in the shade and Jimmy got a big hit by splitting the game. early in the game you tend to get better at breaking, your fastball gets better, you get ahead early.

“Then you just need to establish a strike zone, hit the first shot and move from field to field. I’m really proud of our club. Hats off to Texas A&M. We had a really good team. I’m very proud of our baseball team and what we’ve done.”

“His fastball team and his slider and he’s just trying to get these guys off balance as much as possible.

“Like he said, getting hit first was really huge for him. Then he tried to find the field after that. I thought his replacement was belated. “

On the value that catcher Jimmy Crooks brings to the team:

“I think it’s overlooked in terms of catching. The lead he provides, the comfort of going on the mound and either nibbling on their ass or turning them on or making them serve. I think leadership in terms of catching is what is really needed.

“We’ve had guys in the past – I’ve had guys in the past who were really good at it and we work really hard on it as a staff to teach it. Coach Overcash works with catchers and does an excellent job of teaching this leadership quality.

“These guys know that Jimmy cares about them because they know that he will put his body in front of you, he will feign pain. He’s just a baseball player and he’s also a promising player.”

“I listened to everyone talking about the fourth inning. I think he really, really hit that inning.

“I mean, you look at all the guys who are really good at serving and really the only thing you can control is throw the ball at the target and complete the serve. You cannot control the outcome.

“You may think you can control the outcome, but if you’re trying to get these guys to swing and miss, they don’t swing. I thought that for him to be so focused in the middle of the game in such an environment, there was a high elite level of attention, concentration and execution of shots.

“It’s huge. Now Bennet can rest for a whole week. They are used to it. Every time you get rid of them, you worry a little about it. We actually threw the bullpen for Bennett just in case. he had to quit tomorrow just to stay ahead of the game.

“Then Horton will have the full rest of the game to go for a ride, probably in the second game. Then we’ll just take a cowboy hat, pull the names out of it, and start from there.”

On the fact that after the victory, the team is all business-like with minimal celebration:

“I think these kids are focused. I don’t know if it’s a dog pile or something like that. I mean sometimes it’s a little weird.

“I am very emotional. It may seem that this is not the case. I just thank Jesus for the moment really and all the people who are pulling for a group of guys named David. It happened that David rocks today.”

“Of course. That’s why I have the best baseball operations man, Ryan Gaines. He came to me before we went to practice and said, “Dude, I have a good idea.” I asked him, “What is this?” He said: “Let’s go to Rosenblatt.” I said, “Cool. Let’s go over there and show these guys where this place was, what the College World Series is, where the Oklahoma Sooners won the last national championship in 1994. It was really big.

“Just explained to them when they got off the bus, before they got off the bus, you know what college baseball is. I remember it was like an airport, the balls were leaving that yard. Rosenblatt and it was a really special place. Couldn’t come back in 2010, but I opened 2011 here. It’s a great place.”

“Well, you are in such a situation, it’s not really about the mechanics. It’s just your mental side of serving one serve at a time.

“You don’t want to talk about mechanics. It’s not just about hitting the serve, but it’s the leadership that Jimmy has shown by hitting one serve at a time.

“I mean, the level of focus on what he did after that, really when he let go of the ball and moved on to the next step, is 100% of what it takes to get to the next step and control himself. We talk about it a lot. I don’t know if I saw the execution of what he did during the whole year. I mean, it was pretty fun.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s really special. A guy named David. That’s where this deal really started. It started with lines at the beginning of the year and then moved on to David and being just a bunch of Davids. I’m really proud of these guys.

“They were really selfless. Chazz bites the bullet to get into the bullpen. You can see how he prepares for any half. It was the seventh and we had a list of guys that we could… we were going to use him on that list Then when he got to the eighth inning I was going to go with Trevin because the matchups were better for Trevin than for Chazz and he didn’t throw and Chazz is one of our best hands.

“We have to keep telling these guys, hey, stop. Ready. Keep looking at it. Keep working on it.

On the importance of hitting on the first serve:

“It’s important that against anyone you play, hit the pitch first. That’s the goal every time as a pitcher, so just go out and throw. That was the goal all along.”

On his preparation for this game after coming on as a substitute in the last game:

“Absolutely. Just prepared me for the atmosphere I was going to be in and mentally prepared for this game almost better and trusted everything I had. I think I tried too hard and as Coach Johnson says, you can’t do it. You don’t want to tune in when I don’t need it.”

“I mean, it definitely helped. I just focused on only one out at a time, making spots. Whatever Jimmy called, I just wanted to do it to the best of my ability. , no outs, two outs, whatever happened, I just wanted to do what he called.”

On how he felt today:

“I mean, I felt pretty good. I just trusted my preparation. It’s like I’ve been working on this all year and I feel like there was more muscle memory today than anything up there on the hill. when doing, don’t think too much about things.”

“It still seems kind of surreal. I don’t know about Jimmy. I mean, we’ll feel it on Saturday. We’ll be ready for…