Notre Dame Notebook | Oklahoma

Notre Dame's Link Jarrett, David LaManna and Carter Putz spoke following Sunday's loss to Oklahoma in the College World Series. 

Link Jarrett
On the loss:
LJ: They outplayed us in essentially every phase of the game. I thought Horton was outstanding. When you have mid-90s, you have a good slider, you have a curveball, any flashes change periodically. I mean, that was a lot.

Clearly we didn't recognize it. I thought he did just a phenomenal job. I thought he mixed very well. And when you have that assortment of pitches to deal with, it's difficult. And clearly it was. Godman, they had the matchup they wanted to allow him to throw that inning. He did a nice job.

And Michael is similar to Horton, I think. Maybe not quite the fastball, but really the good little breaking ball and a slider and a change that he uses and uses well.

And we threatened a little bit, but ultimately their ability to punch us out, our inability and their ability to manage their two-strike hitting, to me, was the difference. It seemed it was constant pressure and the reason was is they commanded the strike zone a little bit from the mound and from the plate.

Their hitters did a nice job. They used all phases of their game. They ran bases. We knew this was something that was in play for them. They're good at it.

The bunt, again, we had planned for it a little bit. They executed it. And clearly, they played a really complete game.

Our relievers, you get in that spot where Temple clearly didn't appear to have it. Could he have found it? It seemed that was a time not to try to figure that out. We need to have Tyrell involved in this thing. And he got out of it.

And our relievers, if I'm not mistaken, all got the guy they came in to face and nobody could really settle and consistently string sequences together to limit them. We didn't finish them off. And again to their credit, they really fought through some at-bats and had big two-strike at -bats up and down the lineup.

Dave's home run was a big boost for us. We needed it. And Carter had competitive at-bats all day. It just wasn't consistent enough. But at the end of the day when you strike out 14 times you're not forcing them into enough and they beat us.

On if it felt like Oklahoma’s performance was like watching Notre Dame:
LJ: Yes. Yes. You saw a little bit of it Friday. That ability they had to finish us didn't give us enough opportunities to truly threaten them. When you punch out 14 times, you're forcing them to record 13 outs in the field. If it's not in play, there's no chance that that little thing falls in or that ground ball works through there.

And that's clearly what they did and that pendulum swung in their favor, in essence, to me, because of that. When they got the bunt down and just have to record an out on that.

It was set up almost to have a chance at the plate. He didn't think he did. And that's poor execution that led to more, when you hope you're really expecting that play.

So they did a very good job of doing some of the things that you have obviously seen us do. But the punch-outs, if I say it again -- I have probably said it a hundred times, to me

On the decision to go with Aidan Tyrell over Jack Findlay:
LJ: You know, that was interesting. You're managing the game and you're wanting to keep it in striking distance. And it didn't feel -- it just didn't feel good. Like, Temple didn't have it.

And as we got a little deeper in the lineup, the thought was maybe Tyrell can go in there against the guys that looked like he was going to see versus in the first inning if it had gotten really messy maybe in the middle more, we might have felt like let's just use Findlay and try to get out of this and let him extend. That was our thinking.

But once we felt like it was good for Tyrell to face the guys and get out of that and then extend, that's why they were both going early.

That's not what you're hoping you're thinking in the first inning, but we were. And Findlay has been good coming in and handling some traffic lately, like he did in the Regional. And that hadn't been Aidan's forte lately. So, we were trying to get one in a position maybe to navigate not as much of a stressful situation to flip it and come out clean and really essentially turn it into a start.

And Aidan just wasn't quite sharp. He got the pop-up and the comebacker, and you're like, all right, here we go. Now we can settle in. And this should settle the game for us. And it wasn't. And they battled. They had some tough two-strike hits.

They weren't damaging us a lot, but the damage was putting it in play and repetitive quality at-bats. And we just couldn't finish them off. They did a great job with it.

On potential pitchers for Tuesday:
LJ: Oh, yeah, they're all available. Now who makes the most sense to start, I don't know that just yet. Findlay has clearly started games. He's been so good out of the pen.

We definitely have options. And the way this is formatted it gives guys really a chance to freshen up out of the pen. So we're okay down there. And some of the guys that threw today would probably be able to help us, including Temple.

So Chuck and I will get back and think this through. And we've started a little bit on Texas A&M, but your full focus is really trying to handle the game in front of you and deal with the next one. So we'll dive into that.

We have options. The execution has to be better regardless of who we decide to run out there.

On Texas A&M:
LJ: I don't know a lot about them yet. This is a lot when you're getting ready for the one game. Again, we put our focus more on that. So we haven't studied a ton. Now, we have what we need. Now it's just a matter of constructing it and diving in. So I haven't gotten that deep on them. That will be obviously tonight and like all day tomorrow to try to figure out how to manage them.

Clearly they wouldn't be here if they weren't more than capable of playing well. So it will be a College World Series game.

David LaManna and Carter Putz
On how Notre Dame flushes losses:
CP: I think you just have to take it one game at a time. I think this group is really good at that, realizing the importance of all these games late in the year.

So we're a pretty mature group. And I know the off day tomorrow will give us time to get over it and then focus on the next task at hand, which is Texas A&M.

DL: We preach 1-0 every single day. You sit on this one. And when we come out on Tuesday, try to go 1-0 there.

On Oklahoma pitcher Cade Horton:
DL: For me, he had a good fastball and he didn't seem to be throwing it a lot. He was living with his offspeed stuff. His slider was tough to pick up. And I mean he did a good job. He had a good fastball and good secondary stuff and he was in the zone the whole day.

CP: Pretty much the same thing, kept all of us all off-balance with the curveball and slider. Trying to pick up the different pitches was a little challenging for us today. Tip the cap to him.

On why Notre Dame can absorb a punch and be ready to punch back on Tuesday:
DL: I think we're equipped to do it. We just have to go out there and play our game and execute all three phases of the game better than we did today.

CP: Like Dave said earlier, we try to go 1-0 each and every day. And I think this team is capable of, as long as we play our game, we can go out and compete with anyone. So just try to go 1-0 and play our baseball.

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