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Sunday - June 1, 2008

Press conference quotes from final game

Rice, very annoyingly, puts the post-game quotes in a PDF file that's embedded within a web page. They did post them, though, so I guess I should be grateful. Right? I'm re-posting them here so you don't have to mess with the PDF file.

• Head coach Augie Garrido:
• They out hit us and they out pitched us. We played better defense than they did. Two out of three won.
• On not getting out of the regional
  It's disappointing, extremely disappointing and difficult because we know what the expectations are, and we know what the criticisms are. It's still the way it is, and it needs to be fixed. It's about the fundamentals of the game. I do know how to fix it.
• On how team's sacrificing and inability to bunt impacted the game
  It didn’t play into this game as much as their hitting played into the game. They took apart our pitching with their hitting. The three-run rally they put together was really nicely done. We offered up a lot of bases. I thought that had more to do with it. The separation that got there, got there as a result of several things connected to the pitching parts of it. The walks, the hit batsmen to lead off innings, stealing of bases, the way they executed and hit the ball. They had 11 hits and they hit them hard and they hit them often. The separation was really over the pitching, in my opinion, and the hitting. They made quality pitches on quality hitters at critical times, struck guys out who are the bread and butter of our lineup. Reduced the power that we have in our lineup to one home run.
• On the Rice relief pitchers
  I thought the left hander (Matt Evers) that came in for that little run he made threw us off balance because we were over aggressive trying to win the game. We kept trying to attack his breaking ball. (Bobby Bell) really attacked the strike zone. He threw 95% strikes in the last three innings on the first pitch.
• Starting Center Fielder Jordan Danks:
• On Rice's pitching
  I tip my hat to everybody I faced today because they knew exactly what to throw me in what counts. I just couldn't make contact.
• Starting Right Fielder Kyle Russell:
• On his decision to bunt
  I saw the third baseman back and the pitcher was going to throw me nothing but changeups. I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to lay down a bunt.
• On the grind of a long day and a long game
  I think we came through the Rice game with good confidence. When we got 3-3 and tied the game, we got more confidence. We raised our self esteem and knew we could have this baseball game. We tried hard, we really did. We tried very hard to try to get there. Rice is a great team. You just have to owe it to those guys because we played great baseball today, believe it or not. We might have had 10 strike outs, but we hit the ball real well today too. It is a grind but that's baseball and that's double headers for you. That's what you've got to do in those times. That's what we tried to do and we played very well today.

Posted by Joanna at 11:59 PM