Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the abca's podcast. I'm your host, ryan brownlee.
This episode is sponsored by Netting Pros.
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Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or infoettingpros.com, visit them online at www.nettingpros.com or check out Netting Pros on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Make sure to let CEO Will Minor know that the ABCA sent you now on to the podcast this week's ABCA Podcast was recorded on location from Eastlake, Ohio at the NCAA Division III World Series.
We're handing hosting duties off to Jim Kerner, assistant Executive Director for Coaching Development, who's covering the event.
Capture as many conversations as possible, splitting our coverage into two episodes.
In Part two, we sit down with Troy Brohan from Salisbury University, Craig Raney from Adrian College and Mike Deegan from Denison University.
These coaches share their thoughts on competing on the biggest stage in Division 3 baseball.
Special congratulations to ABCA member Mike Deegan and Denison University on capturing their first NCAA Division III National Championship. Let's welcome everyone to the podcast.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: I'm with Troy Brohan, head baseball coach at Salisbury University out of Maryland. College coach this is the fourth appearance in the last five years, your fifth overall College World Series appearance. You guys won the national championship in 2021.
What is it going to take this year for that to happen? Have you guys come out of here as a champion again? How has this week played out for you on the field? What's gone your way?
[00:02:43] Speaker C: Well, it's not rocket science. The team that plays the best during these first three, four days and then when you get into the Championship Series, there's always going to be a lot of talent here, but sometimes you got to catch some breaks. You got to have a little bit of luck. You have to situationally hit.
You have to make some pitches in some tight situations. So I mean, stuff you've done all year long, it's just magnified when you get here. But usually, I mean in the last three, four years, I don't ever think the most talented team won. Other than last year. I thought Wisconsin Whitewater was the most talented team.
But usually it's the team that plays the best that rolls out of here with the trophy.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Looking at your numbers here, offensively speaking, there's some things that stand out to me.
Number one, you had 144 bags. That's a lot of stolen bases.
Number two, you guys only struck out 258 times. I consider that a pretty low number.
Offensive philosophy, can you speak to that?
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Yeah, it's had to change.
You know, last year we lost our catcher to Richmond. We lost an outfielder to Westchester, we lost three or four guys, another outfielder to Delaware, and then we had our first baseman graduate and those were our two, three, four and six hole hitters. So that was a lot of thump in the lineup.
We really had to change our ways and adapt to our personnel. And we're doing a lot more bunting, we're doing a lot more hitting and run a lot more stealing bags. More of a pressure offense. We have a few guys that can put it out of the yard, but we're more of a chaos offense this year in particular than we've been in the past when we've arrived.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: How about the pitching side? The thing that stood out to me, it doesn't look like you guys walk many people. You know, 154 on the year. That's a pretty low number. Teams are only batting 217. It looks like you do have a true ace in Brinsfield. Sixteen starts on the year, a lot of innings, 90 plus innings. What can we expect out of the pitching staff?
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Well, as long as I've been here, and I say it every single year, you know, I came from a National League product of what I played in my entire career. And a lot of that was pitching and defense. And we stress pitching and defense throughout the fall, throughout recruiting and in my experiences. When you can pitch and play some defense, it doesn't matter how well you hit or don't hit, you're going to stay in a lot of baseball games in the fall. We thought we had probably one of the best overall staffs we've had here in my 12 years.
Now, that was before the spring started, but they've turned out to have a heck of a year. It's led by Brinsfield.
Then you have Jack Rucker, you have Tyler Villa. And one thing that we established, I think, Prior to the 21 season was the development of a bullpen and how important that can be.
And we have four or five guys coming out of the bullpen that might throw hard, might not throw hard, might come from an angle down here, but what they will do is attack, they will throw strikes and they'll compete.
And I think that's been a really, really big part of this community success of the program over the past six years is the development of the bullpen and the product we put on the field. When somebody comes in out of the bullpen.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Was there a moment this season that, you know, you realized, hey, this team's got a chance to be special or a moment of adversity that you guys had to fight through, that you kind of knew if you got through this, you guys could be on your way to something good?
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I said this in the super regional presser.
You know, we were kind of trying to find our identity, especially offensively throughout the first half of the year.
Our strength is schedule every single year because we have to do 36 non conference games.
You know, you're playing the best of the best and you're allowed to schedule it that way. We went through a weekend, I think, where we had Randolph Macon on a Saturday, Randolph Macon on a Sunday, Shenandoah on a Monday, and Penn State Harrisburg on a Thursday.
And we dropped the first two of that weekend and then we came back and I think Shenandoah was highly ranked at the time, three or four. And we really, really played a good game of baseball that day. And I think that right there turned, I think, the offensive side of it around to say, you know what, we can do this. If we just execute, you know, we don't have to try to. If I'm not a home run hitter, you know, let's drop down a bunt, let's hit, use the middle of the field. And I think that that game right there, in my opinion, kind of started it rolling.
And I don't know if it was after that game we ran off 17 in a row or somewhere, but I know we've. We've played really good baseball for the past 16, 17 games.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Last question for you, coach.
You guys have been here. You obviously have experience. You won the national championship in 2021. What's the message for your team? How do you get them prepared mentally for this stage? And you know what's at stake.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: They'll tell you this. I say it regularly. Just be the best. You, you know, don't come here and, you know, if you're a 270 hitter and you bunt a lot and you move guys over and don't try to be anything more than that. Do what it takes to help the team. Sacrifice your bats. Pitchers, be aggressive.
We're always very confident in our guys that they're going to give you everything they have.
But I love aggressive play. So I love aggressiveness on the mound, I love aggressiveness at the plate and that's it. Just be the best you while you're here. And if it lasts you till next Thursday, then you're here till next Thursday. If it lasts you till Saturday, you're here till Saturday. But you gave it everything you had and you left it on the field.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: I appreciate your time. Good luck this week and hopefully it goes away.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: I appreciate it.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: I'm with Craig Rainey, head baseball coach at Adrian College from Michigan.
Coach, congratulations on being here.
You guys went 37 and 12 this year. Can you talk about your journey to get to this point? You know, what did it take for you guys to achieve this kind of success up until the College World Series?
[00:08:50] Speaker D: Yeah, well, we started the year, you know, with a pretty, pretty tough schedule. Went down south, played some of the, you know, some ranked schools, some better schools down there, trying to get our guys prepared for this journey. And you know, we, that was one of our goals early in the, in the season was to play really good teams. We actually, if our schedule would have played out right of the teams that are at here.
We, we did play etbu, we did play Denison, we got rained out against Baldwin Wallace and we got rained out against Endicott. So we would have played four of the teams that made it here had the weather cooperated with us. So we put together a pretty tough schedule. We wanted to get to the point where we could win our conference regular season, win the conference tournament, which we did, and then have a chance to host a regional, which we did get to do that.
Obviously we won the regional and then we got the opportunity to host a, the super regional, you know, because of where we were at ranking wise and things and then, you know, then ended up here. So it's been, you know, it's been a journey. We've had some ups and downs, played well early, kind of struggled a little bit when the conference opened up. We weren't, I would say, clicking on all cylinders at that time and then really put it together at the end and finish strong.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: What's the message been? You said you kind of struggled early. How'd you get you guys on track? Was there a meeting, a turning point Anything specific?
[00:10:31] Speaker D: Yeah, I don't think it was anything specific. I think we just kind of got refocused.
I think the schedule early was tough. We had some success. We were ranked pretty high at a couple different times and then we just kind of maybe, I don't want to say rested, but just kind of weren't as focused as we needed to be the first couple weeks of the conference and didn't play well and had a couple injuries that may have contributed a little bit. But we just needed to refocus. We needed to get back to doing the fundamental things right and just competing a little bit.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, talk about your position players. You know, looking at your stats here, looks like you guys got some guys that can run. You hit 115 doubles this year as a team.
What style of play can we expect out of you guys?
[00:11:26] Speaker D: Yeah, I think when we started the year we thought we were a pretty well rounded team.
You know, we got a little bit of pop in the lineup.
We can run a little bit. We got some guys that can hit for average.
I mean, probably our strength of our position guys is I think we're still in the top eight in the country in fielding percentage right now.
We've been able to play defense really well all year, but we just, we have a little bit of versatility in the lineup and some guys that can do things.
So I think that's kind of our strength is being able to, being able to run, to be able to, you know, obviously you said hit some doubles and steal some bases and create a little bit of havoc on the bases.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Looking at the pitching staff, you know, I see some depth. You might have nine, 10 guys with over 10 plus innings. Looks like you guys throw a lot of strikes for the most part. Is there a certain formula, different looks? How do you guys piece it together on the mound?
[00:12:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I think we have three or four guys that are all pretty similar.
So we don't like, you know, some teams get here and you kind of look and you're like, oh, they got a true one and this guy's usually there too where we've kind of mixed and matched according to teams that we're playing. And you know, our top three guys that have been pitching pretty consistently the last, you know, month of the season, you know, some will throw the first game of the weekend series and sometimes they'll throw the last game.
But I like our depth.
Our conference I think helps us a lot. We play a three game weekend series and all nine inning games. So we have to have some depth. And then we always have a conference game, one conference game in the middle of the week. So you got to have, you know, four starters in our conference. You got to have a bullpen that can be used. So I think when we get to this point of the year, you know, sometimes, you know, some leagues, they play a doubleheader and, you know, the 1 and 2 guy get to pitch a lot, and some of the other guys don't get to pitch as much. But I think our guys, we kind of have things set up pitching wise that our starters know who they are and what they can do, and then our bullpen guys know what role they fill out of the bullpen and can come in and are comfortable in those situations, especially in big games. You know, the final game, you know, this past weekend in the super regionals was a three to two game, and we had to have a couple guys come in at the end and, you know, get some outs for us. And I think they felt comfortable in that situation.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. What's the message this week? You tell your guys anything different?
[00:13:58] Speaker D: No, not really. Business as usual. I mean, obviously when you get here, everybody's really good. You know, they're going to be, you know, tight games, highly contested games. We got to make some pitches, we got to get some hits, you know, some timely hitting, and we got to continue to do what we do. But I like to try to just keep it as normal as we can. Practice has been the same this week as what it was leading up to the regionals and the super regionals and just kind of keep them in their comfort zone, keep them focused on what we need to do, but also let them enjoy it. I mean, you know, this is, you know, for some teams and, you know, we've been fortunate. We've been here three times now, but for these guys, this is a big deal to get here, and it's pretty important to them to not only come here and compete and for us to win, but for them to enjoy the moment a little bit and understand what they've accomplished and what they've done and. And, you know, be able to, you know, smile and have fun every once in a while.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: That's great. Coach, I appreciate your time, and I wish you the best of luck this week.
[00:14:57] Speaker D: Thanks. I appreciate you guys being out here.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:14:59] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: I'm with Mike Deegan, head coach at Denison University.
Coach, congratulations on being here 451 this year. What makes this team go, you know, it's.
[00:15:15] Speaker E: Man, it's probably. Probably a little Bit of some of those buzzwords that you hear. But one, I'll just start here, I'll say we're really talented. We have a talented group and a lot of guys that have had big game experience in the past, and I think that helps a lot during the regular season, especially in some of the higher leverage league games and things like that. So that experience plus talent always helps. And then I think there's other things, like, just like a very selfless group. We have 12 seniors. They all have different roles, but they all buy into their roles. And I think when you do that, it bleeds throughout the whole program. So when you have talent, when you have experience, and then you have a group of selfless people, I think some. Some great things can happen.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. When we watch you play, what kind of. What do we expect? You know, it looks like you guys, you know, you got some guys that can run, you got a couple guys that can hit the ball at the ballpark. You know, talk about style of play.
[00:16:04] Speaker E: Yeah, you know, I think we, you know, we pride ourselves over the years of trying to suppress runs, you know, so we want to be really hard to score against. And this part, you know, depending on how the weather is tomorrow, we can play small. But, you know, usually, you know, we want to be difficult to score against.
We want to have a diverse offense that can beat you in a lot of different ways. You know, you mentioned a few. Like, we want to be able to leave the yard, we want to be able to bunt, grab a base, take the extra base. So whatever the conditions, whatever the opponent's asking, like, we hope that we can meet the demands of the game and show up. But, yeah, I think just pride ourselves in good defense, you know, hitting in various ways, from bunts to home runs.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Now, you guys were here last year, so I'm assuming that a lot of your roster has experience from playing in this event last year and playing at this level last year. What can you guys learn from last year that can carry over to this year and help win that championship?
[00:16:57] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, we have, you know, a lot of guys played here, but we had a lot of turnover, too. You know, a lot of turnover from last year. I think we lost over 80% of our innings. And so, you know, kind of to be back in this position is pretty special. But I think just the familiarity of it, just knowing where the practice venue is and what practice looks like and what the ceremony looks like tonight. So I think all those things. I'm not giving you a great answer. I Think you just have a baseline understanding of how all this works, and that allows you just to get to playing baseball, hopefully sooner rather than later, where last year you're just trying to get your bearings straight and then you got to go play a game. Hopefully now we have our rhythm down a little bit and we can just go perform like we always Perform tomorrow at 1:15.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: What's the message to the team? Anything different? You know, how do you prepare the team for this?
[00:17:39] Speaker E: You know what? I just. This team's special. I mean, it is a special group. And, you know, my. Our message really is like, it's been an awesome year. At this time of year, results are very random. And so we just want to let it rip, you know, just go play, enjoy it, enjoy the whole experience.
You know, I think the team who's not afraid to lose a lot of times is dangerous, and that's what I want us to be, that we're not worried about the result if we lose. We'll tip our cap, we'll dust ourselves off, and we'll go again the next day. But, yeah, just play to win. That's probably my message.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Now, you talked about. You talked about some turnover on the roster. At what point this season did you realize, wow, we got a chance to be pretty special?
[00:18:19] Speaker E: Yeah, you know, I don't know. I guess I'm probably not wired that way.
I knew I could tell the DNA of the group was really good. And then you start rounding off some wins, and I'm just wired to think of improvement in areas that were deficient. So that's usually where my mind is. But then you do. You do look up at some point and go, man, we've won like 15 straight 20.
We're doing something right. But really for us is just trying to get better every day. And I know everyone says that, but that's really where our focus is.
[00:18:49] Speaker D: But.
[00:18:49] Speaker E: But I just love the group more than anything, like talent. Besides, it's just a fun group to be around, and I'm so excited to have a few more days with them.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: This finishes up our Postseason coverage for 2026. As always, I appreciate everyone that listens to the ABCA Podcast. Baseball community is so special to me, and I'm proud to be a part of telling the story of baseball at every level. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt Weston, ABCA office. For all the help on the podcast, feel free to reach out to me via email, our brownleybca.org Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at coachbca or direct message me via the MyBCA app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you.
[00:19:41] Speaker D: And you know that way Yep Wait for another day
[00:19:49] Speaker C: and the world will
[00:19:52] Speaker B: always return and your life is never
[00:19:56] Speaker C: for yearning and you know that way
[00:20:04] Speaker D: Wait for another
[00:20:10] Speaker A: day.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: Sam.
