From the field: Butch Thompson, Tim Hudson and more talk about Auburn's historic win

On3 imageby:Justin Hokanson06/13/22

_JHokanson

14-seed Auburn defeated 3-seed Oregon State, 4-3, on Monday night to advance to the program’s sixth College World Series ever.

Here’s what Auburn coaches and players, including Butch Thompson, said during postgame radio and postgame interviews following the historic road win:

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Butch Thompson

Thoughts: It’s an amazing group. It’s a joy. I’m proud of these guys. I didn’t want it to end. You don’t want it to end. We’re not done yet. We’re going to take this to Omaha. We talked Omaha or bust. We want a national championship or bust. We’re going to give them hell. We’re going to let the wheels fall off.

To be able to go back to Omaha so soon, it’s a testament to this team and program. We have a good program. They did an amazing job.

On the pitching staff: Our pitching staff was incredible. You have to go up and down, absolute pitching on the road like this. This is the best we’ve pitched in a series. It was going to be hard to hang on. Burky smelled the finish line. Win the moment. He’s a competitive-moment pitcher. When Justin Boyd hit the home run, I knew we were going to have to strap it on. We worried about the ninth when the ninth got here.

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I think about those holdovers with this team. Brody Moore, Kason Howell, Carson Skipper, they have set a good tone. I like to give those three guys credit for what it’s supposed to look like.

On defeating Oregon State, the nation’s 3 seed: We started working. We wanted to be the mentally toughest team in America. When you do something like this, in a venue like this — to come into a place like this, it’s special. There was some mental toughness shown in this series.

On preseason rankings: Somebody has to be first, somebody has to be last.

Tim Hudson

Thoughts: It feels amazing. These boys fought hard all year. They went through their ups and downs — it’s paying off. You couldn’t deny them. They’re tough.

On Mason Barnett: One pitch at a time. You have to believe in everything you’re doing out there. Every pitch was with intention. He knew we had some bullpen power waiting on him. He did what we needed.

On Carson Skipper and Blake Burkhalter: Big time innings, bit time pitching. Their top four or five hitters are as good as we’ve seen all year. Bend, but didn’t break.

Karl Nonemaker

Thoughts: That’s a great environment and great team we just played. Those pitches by Burkhalter at the end — this team has done so much to battle. To be able to hold it down right there was huge. Those are humongous pitches right there and good clean defense.

On defensive alignment: Credit to Oregon State last night. They took the game and had some great bunts, played situational baseball. The play Brody made in the eighth inning wasn’t easy. He made it look easy. In the two games we won, we couldn’t have given them any extra outs.

Nate LaRue

On finishing the job: I have a metaphor: it’s like when you have to take a really big poop, and you finally get to go. It’s a relief.

Blake Burkhalter

On the dog pile: It was amazing for the first three seconds, then I was on the bottom. Words can’t describe how exciting that was. You’re in the moment living it up. Everyone was having a wonderful time.

Sonny DiChiara

Thoughts: I love these guys so much. We have two more weeks together. We’re going to play to the best of our ability and live it up.

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