UNC 7, ECU 5 - Postgame Interviews

North Carolina’s Scott Forbes, Colin Hynek and Caden Glauber spoke to the media following UNC’s 7-5 win over ECU and Game 4 of the Chapel Hill Regional.

Scott Forbes

“What a game, just awesome. Obviously, it’s more awesome when you come out on top, but the older you get, and the more you coach, you learn to appreciate things much better. You have way more perspective. East Carolina, they played hard, very well coached, really good players, and that’s not surprising, because that’s who they are. I thought they had to have a really good outing from Luke Payne, and he threw the ball really well, kept them in the game. 

“And then a big swing and a bat down there by my man from Georgia, Colin Hynek.  First time he’s played in the postseason, and to see him running around third base, and Caden Glauber too. I thought Jason DeCaro battled and had pretty good stuff, he just could not get to his off speed and ECU is very disciplined and he couldn’t put them away with his off speed.

“Give credit to coach Bryant Gaines. I was in the middle in the ninth and needed to be pushed over because I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but when your pitching coach feels very strongly that we need to go to Walker McDuffie, we did. Globe didn’t like it, but he’ll like that he’s available the next two days, or one day hopefully.

”We talk about it all the time, the Dean Smith rule. You pick each other up, and that’s what we’ve done all season. Somebody yelled out of the dugout – it might have been Kyle Datres – ‘make a pitch right here and pick Gavin up.’ Sure enough, that’s exactly what Globe did, and Gavin Gallaher turned a really good double play, and that’s a big play right there. When you make that error and then to quiet that momentum, and that I feel like we’ve done a good job of that all season. We talk about when something negative happens, we’ve got to get the next guy. That’s the key, just get the next guy. We talk to pitchers about that all the time, and that will prevent a big inning. So that was a huge pitch for us, and a big double play.”

Colin Hynek

“It was a lot of fun being able to bring the team back into that game. I haven’t played in the postseason, haven’t played past a conference tournament, so you know that’s part of why I came here, to be in moments like this. So to be able to come through, that was pretty special, and something I’ll remember forever.”

On the timeout conversation with Coach Forbes before the HR

“He just told me to stay short, hit something in the gap, and that he believed in me, and that if he was betting, he was going to bet on me. So it’s a couple times now this year he’s stopped me to let me know that he believes in me, and that means a lot, coming especially from your head coach. So it’s kind of gives you an extra confidence boost in the box.”

Stringing together multi-hit games

“I think I’ve done a better job of getting good swings off. I’m not in between as much. When I’ve struggled this year, that’s been the case a lot. Swinging at bad pitches and taking good ones. So, when I’m getting good pitches, I’m getting swings off right now. That’s a credit to our coaching staff. We’ve worked a lot on that with Coach Jesse Wierzbicki, Coach Brandon Martorano, and Coach Scott Jackson.”

Caden Glauber

“Those situations (from earlier in season) definitely helped me out. Been in them before, and I think everyone on our team performs their best in the high leverage situation. So we had a great team win today, and with the heart rate, you have to stay the same throughout the whole time, can’t get too high, I can’t get too low.”

“Watching (Gavin Gallaher on TV the last two years), it’s incredible what he’s done in past regionals. He’s doing it right now in front of my eyes so it’s insane to see it in person rather than seeing it on TV.”

You talked about watching that LSU game in ’24 with a weight on your chest….

“It’s definitely crazy. I had the biggest weight in my chest watching that game, but today it’s almost like the crowd and the momentum and the team that we have just take it off you. You know that they’re going to compete for you, compete behind you, and just get the job done with you.”