WKU BASE: Marc Rardin, Kyle Hayes, Cal Higgins & Carlos Vasquez | Oxford Regional Postgame | 5/31/25
uh yeah uh I guess it’s the obviously it doesn’t end exactly the way uh that we wanted it to um um you know to have I think we ended up with I don’t know 23 24 hits in two games and to come out with two losses is unfortunate um uh you know you you get to the postseason and you go to Conference USA tournament and it’s it’s a little little pigeon hole and then all a sudden you get to a regional and it’s a little bit tighter for um mistakes um you know that you can’t have and uh the runs you give up and things of that nature so uh you know this is a great regional with Georgia Tech um obviously Old Miss uh winning their regular season as well didn’t they win the regular season i think or they were tournament or turning runner up sorry and so obviously playing hot and you know misfortune last night with how good Murray State is but that’s the example as well is you get here and baseball’s about who’s hot at the time and um you know there there’s a few teams here that are hot right now and for us we just we we we couldn’t stop bleeding at times um and like I said when you when you roll out for two games and you have 20ome hits uh but uh you’re having a hard time being in position to win uh you’re going home but it it does not take anything away from a 46 and4 season uh lot of history being made uh or was made this year with WKU baseball which we’re incredibly uh proud about this is the 106th year of baseball at WKU and all this team knows is that they’re team 106 um we had a lot of the alums from the 2009 here uh which was awesome for them to be around that was the last time WKU was here in a regional and had a knockdown dragout with Old Miss from everything I hear um and were great games and it’s great to see them back but this is team 106 and we were trying to uh bring back some of that like what two 2009 had created and you know in a lot of ways I I think we have um um we we’re we’re known a little bit more um and we we’ve achieved some things uh we’ve got new facilities that will be done in October and there’s just so many positives that I’m not going to let a day um or two days ruin um these kids’ time here at WKU whether it was one year or in this case for these guys so far two years here um you know these and you’re looking at three guys that are pillars of this place um day in day out um the other team teammates gravitate towards them um they bring energy uh they bring accountability and uh you know they’re a lot of what WKU baseball is about right now for you guys um what was it like you know obviously WKU hasn’t been to this stage in some time but what’s it like for you guys to get to this stage especially all three of you coming from junior colleges and getting to play at this field in this environment at this time of year go ahead i It’s pretty surreal um I all we talked about all year was trying to make a regional winning the tournament winning the regular season which we fell short of but you know it’s pretty surreal um but we hang our hat on the fact that we gave it everything we got and we left it all on the field uh Cal you had quite the showing of those late innings um kind of a kind of a a good way to end the season on your end i know as a team you guys didn’t achieve what you would have ultimately liked to uh with not winning the game but uh what’s your take on your performance today you know I uh like like Kyle said just uh left it all on the field just wanted to ball out for the boys in late May so there’s there’s no there’s no better experience than that carlos you kind of got the team going today two doubles and back to back at bats took one big RBI to tie the game there early early in the in the first three innings um what was your approach going into today um just look for a good pitch to hit uh keep my swing short and just be aggressive so Yep uh coach what what can you say about these guys and the rest of those guys after you know such an incredible season 46 wins uh the second most ever in program history in a single season um and and what can you talk about going forward into the future um yeah I mean Cal’s been with me for four years now he came with me from my junior college you’re welcome so you’re welcome so we can go back and forth uh but uh so you know there’s a relationship there um that that’s very close um you know Carlos was hurt last year and that was like probably behind the scenes so many people didn’t realize that that was just uh that just killed us that he was injured all of last year medical red shirt last year and um we we had so much success last year and so close to being at a place like this just last year um and he was one of the keys that you know it is what it is in the business he was hurt um but just again uh the relationship um uh it’s not just about him hitting lead off or hitting three hole or playing third or playing left field or everything that he can do uh he’s a voice to the team he’s a voice for the team um you know he has very comfortably walked into my office and closed the door and had great talks with me uh for the betterment of the team um you know you’re they’re they’re around him 24 hours a day i’m around him three hours a day so uh just the pulse he’s had and uh what we could talk about what I could talk to him about um best thing about Carlos is we’re down at FIU and I call him out in front of the dugout um and we lose all three games at the time which was killing us um to get into a regional or or obviously hurt us in conference standings i I challenged him on Sunday um and all he did was go out the next week and be conference player of the year or uh player of the week um between playing um Kentucky midweek and then whoever we played on the weekend and all a sudden he was I mean that’s in today’s world majority of the kids the percentage of kids run to their parents or run to the other teammates and and they’re bitching and complaining and and right BCDs um uh BC not your phone screen for a while yes um BCDs you’re either bitching complaining defending or denying uh so um you know a lot of kids go do that stuff and all he did was come to my office and uh he wanted to make sure we got things straight um in a very positive way and it was tremendous and like I said he goes out and and does what he does and does what he has this whole year so um from where we didn’t have him last year to where we had him now was um it just shows how important um he has been for us um and then Hayes Hayes worked himself into the lineup uh he came here and you know in in some cases junior college kids especially position players take a little bit longer for an adjustment and you know he would agree with me that he was one of those guys as a position player coming from a jo but what he didn’t do was quit what he didn’t do was make excuses um he literally outworked people on ground balls in the batting cage things of that nature to put himself in the spot he’s in um and and has created this year for him i think these three along with others that I could go through that have been with us for a few years uh exemplify what um the new WKU baseball is about and uh you know where we are and where we’re going anything else awesome thank you guys
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