Transcript: Thursday presser at Tucson Regional

Transcript from Grand Canyon's Thursday availability before the Tucson Regional gets underway on Friday night.

(Coach Wallis on familiarity and recent success in Tucson)
"I think that plays a role obviously, with the familiarity with them and the facility and I think the biggest thing is the fact that we just had to hop on a bus. Hearing about a bunch of travel issues around the country, the fact that we came down this morning, our families get to come down, I think that's the biggest plus coming back down to Tucson, our whole families get to be down here. We're having a little family barbecue out at Zach Yorke's place tonight for the team and their parents, so I think that's the best part about staying local here."

(Tyler Wilson on what he remembers from the 2021 Tucson Regional)
"I remember they could hit; I mean they raked. This team can definitely hit, but the last three times we played them it's been more of a bullpen game and now we get to face their weekend starters which are pretty good so you know we just got to keep our swings short and stay to our gameplan, and let's just hit line drives and not try to do too much."

(Wallis on the veteran leadership of the team)
"It's been really enjoyable; our senior class is very experienced, and they've played a lot of baseball games and they've just kind of taken the lead especially midway through the season. I remember when we got hot with our 10-game winning streak towards the end: I felt like it was really the seniors that took the lead and the older guys that took charge. They were leading the dugout; they were leading by example. Sometimes when the coaches were thinking about calling the team up or saying something between innings, one of the seniors were already doing it, so it's their team and it's a fun feeling as a coach because I've been in the dugout with these guys for a lot of games and it's been rewarding seeing how they've gone about it this year and getting rewarded to come out here and compete for a championship."

(Wallis on what stands out about Clark Candiotti)
"Well, he's obviously having a great year, he really competitive, he likes to have fun, always seems to be the one on camera. To be honest, my hitting coach has gone into that a bit more than I have. I'll take a look more tonight and tomorrow afternoon. I know he did a great job in the Pac-12 Tournament, pitched a great game against Stanford. We shared a plane with them going to Seattle actually, and he was a name that just kept coming up so it sounds like he's kind of their team leader and we know it's going to be a battle."

(Wallis continued story on being on the same flight as Arizona)
"We were on the same plane, as we were going to play Seattle University and Arizona was going to play the University of Washington and we got to the airport and I think they had a connector from Tucson to Phoenix and we shared a flight to Seattle."

(Wilson on familiarity with Hi Corbett Field)
"It definitely helps. When you're going to a regional, you're usually going to a brand new ballpark and you don't know how it plays and what factors in. Having to come down here for the past four years, I think it's twice a year, it definitely makes all the difference. Knowing how the outfield plays, what angles you have to take, it should be no surprises."

(Eli Paton on familiarity with Hi Corbett Field)
"I mean having experienced any ballpark is really important and coming here for the third time this year already definitely gives us an advantage for this regional."

(Isaac Lyon on familiarity with Hi Corbett Field)
"I'd agree with what Tyler and Eli had to say, just the familiarity with the ballpark definitely helps. We've come down here and played here six times in the last two years which has been awesome."

(Lyon on pitching coach Nathan Bannister)
"Ah he's awesome. I mean Banni is the best. No, we don't talk (about his playing career at Arizona) too much. I am definitely asking him questions because he's been here and has definitely had success here so had some conversations about what it's like to pitch in these big games coming up. You know it's great learning from him."

(Wallis on Grant Richardson)
"He's a big lefty. Last year and the beginning of this year he was in a back-end role, and sometime in the middle of the year, we decided to start him on a midweek because he has really good stuff and its cool to say that when people around the country tune into this regional were going to be throwing a guy in Game 1 that's stuff matches up with anyone in the country. He's a big lefty that throws 92-95 mph, he's got a plus slider, I think it's a big-league slider. We decided to make the move for him to starting midweeks when we were playing ASU and he did great his first outing and his second outing and then we had some injuries, and Isaac was doing great on the weekend as well, so it just worked out for us to put Grant in that Friday role and he's done a great job. I think he's had six starts now, his first four were pretty dominant. He hit a little adversity in one of them and then our last one in the conference tournament he did great as well, we didn't necessarily provide him any run support, but he's been a great option for us and I feel like we can match up with anybody when he is on the mound."

(Wallis on how many current players played in 2021 regional)
"Well, six for sure. We have six seniors who are four year guys, after that I don't know if there were any other freshman, so six."

(Wallis on benefits for four-year seniors)
"Well, they've been to three in four years now, so I think that's the biggest benefit. But that stuff is all just benefits on paper, it's going to come down to how quickly we settle in and hopefully we learn something from last week. I thought we were as prepared as ever, and it just didn't work out that way. So we definitely have some benefits on paper, but its going to come down to how quickly we settle in to this environment and play the type of baseball were capable of."

(Wallis continued on Candiotti)
"Again, he's a local kid, he's a Phoenix kid and we know his story really well. We know he's having an incredible year and he's hot right now. His outing against Stanford, I believe I was actually watching it, but he's been dominant for them. We exchanged starters yesterday, but we had a pretty good feeling that was who they were going to go with because of how good he's been down the stretch and it's going to be a challenge and that's why you're here. I think everyone in the country is going to be facing a challenge tomorrow, there's 64 really quality teams and we know he's going to be good and it's going to be a great challenge for us."

(Wilson and Lyon on having MLB-pitcher fathers)
Tyler - "It definitely helps when your father is someone who got somewhere we all want to go and to be able to just talk about the mental aspect of the game or the physical aspect of the game, its definitely a huge help to have someone you're so close with that you can talk about anything with. It definitely helps."
Isaac - "I agree with Tyler, just postgame conversations with my dad help a ton, he'll bring up certain spots here and there and I usually agree. It's a huge advantage for sure."

(Paton on his first NCAA Tournament appearance)
"The first two years when I was at UCLA, I was hurt and I didn't make the roster. That put a chip on my shoulder and being here today is honestly a dream come true. When I got to GCU that was the goal and our next goal is to win our first regional game for GCU and then win the regional."

(Isaac on pitching on this stage)
"Just trusting my practice, preparation and going out and competing. Not trying to worry about it too much, because at the end of the day it is just another game and we are prepared for this."

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