Men's College World Series: Frogs Ready To Play

On Thursday, several Horned Frogs met with the media to talk about their return to Greatest Show on Dirt.

Twitter: @CharlesScwabFO

It's been an incredible ride for the TCU baseball team (42-22). After winning 11 straight games and going undefeated so far in postseason play, the Horned Frogs are making their sixth appearance in the pinnacle of college baseball - the Men's College World Series. 

"There's a lot of people outside of our locker room that probably didn't think we would be a month or two ago," said head coach Kirk Saarloos. "But the resiliency of our team and our program, obviously - the guys did the work, and we're here because of them."

"We're back where we should be," said Saarloos. "It had been six years. We had gone four years in a row and five total, and I think Fort Worth and TCU thought it was super easy to get a World Series, and it's really hard. So, I couldn't be more proud in terms of our program being back in Omaha."

This is the sixth appearance in Omaha for TCU. Previous appearances were in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. The six appearances since 2010 are second only to Florida (8), a team the Frogs could face as early as Sunday. 

Third baseman Brayden Taylor is widely projected to be a first-round pick in next month's MLB Draft. He's not alone, as potentially as half of those projected first-round picks are in Omaha this week. 

"I think it's outstanding that there are tons of good teams and tons of good players," said Taylor. "What I'm really just looking forward to is seeing how we go out there and compete, play our baseball, play our good team baseball, and I'm just excited to be out there." 

"I feel like if we go up there and play our good baseball, we don't need to change our approach," said Taylor. "We're not trying to go up there and hit home runs. Trying to get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it. That's all we have to do."

TCU will face Oral Roberts in Game One of the MCWS. The Golden Eagles are just the third Regional 4-seed to make the MCWS. They've won 51 games, second only to Wake Forest this season. They have only lost one game since April 23, which was in Game One of last week's Super Regional at Oregon.

TCU pitcher Sam Stoutenborough was asked about the hot ORU team. "If you are playing in Omaha in June, you're a pretty good team," said Stoutenborough. "There's not much else to it. We're just going to be focused on us and taking it one game at a time."

When asked about the mid-season slump the Frogs found themselves in, Stoutenborough said, "We say at the beginning of the year what we were capable of, and then we hit a rough spot, like every team does. The belief, I think, in our locker room never faltered. We always knew that we would eventually get back to where we want to get to."

"I don't know if any of us imagined it to go this far," Stoutenborough continued. "But we knew what kind of club we were, and we weren't  - we were kind of just keeping it with us, the 36 guys on our team, and our coaches. We weren't really listening to that outside noise."

Shortstop Tre Richardson has been hot this postseason, including a 3-home run, 11-RBI game against Arkansas in the Regional. 

"Making it to Omaha has always been a dream," said Richardson. "I think the older and older you get, and when you are on a team that expects to go to Omaha, it just becomes a part of the journey."

"That's really been the majority of everything that we've done over the last few weeks has just been a part of the journey," Richard continued. "The end goal is to be last the team standing, and that's something that we are going for."

"I'm just happy to be playing baseball in June. I mean, I remember sitting on the couch this time last year and just knowing that this is what I should be doing. I should be playing baseball in June," he concluded.

Next up: TCU faces Oral Roberts in Game One of the Men's College World Series on Friday, June 16 at 1 pm CT. The game can be seen on ESPN. 

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