June 2, 2008
Recap |
Final Stats |
Notes
TULANE QUOTES
HEAD COACH Rick Jones
Overall thoughts on the game
"We ran into one of the hottest teams in the country. There's no question about that. I felt good about our club going into tonight. We were in the same place we were this time last night. We came in and we had to win one ballgame. We had been playing well. But when you're facing a Florida State club who is as good offensively as they are, you can't let them have anything other than what they earned."
On allowing seven unearned runs
"We had some things happen tonight that is a little uncharacteristic of this club, and if you look at our numbers, they bear that out. The dropped ball in the outfield where we had a little miscommunication (was big). That's something we take a lot of pride in and it very seldom happens to us, but it happened at bad time tonight - particulary when we handled the first-and-third situation (earlier in the game). You go from a two-run lead to a four-run lead there real quickly, and then they tacked on. They had the infield single after that, and they took advantage again. They're just too good offensively."
On the pitching of both teams on Monday night
"I thought the lefty did a good job of battling for them. We ran as many different looks out there as we could. I thought that Shooter had good stuff and competed as hard as he could. But his pitch count got up. It was a pretty tight zone - I'm not saying it was a bad zone, but a tight zone - and he just missed on a bunch of pitches there which put him deeper in the kind. He was trying to pitch these guys the best he could, which you have to do. When we had the miscue, that extended the inning, and that got his pitch count up. We've protected him so much in his career at Tulane. We've never, ever extended him and we've never ran him out there on short notice. (Throwing 86 pitches) was on the outer reaches for him, so we weren't going to go any further with that, even though his stuff was still good. He was starting to feel fatigued a little bit, which you could understand.
"
Nick Pepitone did so well for us against Florida and he's rested and ready to go, and felt good after the rain delay. He stayed hot and loose during that time. He's a guy that really throws a lot of ground balls. In this ballpark, you want to do that, but they put some good swings on pitches that were down in the zone. They weren't bad pitches. I thought
Taylor Rogers gave us a good look. But eventually against this kind of club, if you leave a ball up and get behind in the count, they're going to make you pay. That happened. When you bring in a lefty and lefties tee off, it's because they're good hitters - especially if you have a lefty who has the stuff that Loup had tonight."
On having to overcome the three errors on Monday night
"It's tough for us. They had 18 hits and a lot of RBI, and it's tough for us not to play our best game against a team that has that kind of ability offensively."
On the immediate outlook on next year's team
"I didn't run a senior out there tonight until Trey Martin went out in the ninth. I've got a couple of juniors that we may lose in the draft, but this is a relatively young club that returns almost everyone next year position player wise as well as the vast majority of our staff. We've had a tremendous recruiting class, so if the draft is not too tough on us, I think our club a year from now certainly can resemble the club that we faced tonight. We faced a great team and its going to have a great chance to win a national championship."
On the overall experience at the NCAA Tallahassee Regional
"Between here and Georgia Tech, I've been to 16 Regionals. I've never been to one that was run any better. It would be tough to find any more gracious and supportive fans of college baseball than you have here in Tallahassee. It was a great student-athlete experience."
FLORIDA STATE QUOTES
HEAD COACH MIKE MARTIN
Overall thoughts on the game
"When we lost the first ball game, we knew it was going to be a challenge to come back through the loser's bracket. I got a text from Clint Purvis, our team chaplain, and he told me to refer to Psalm 50:15 and I did and I just want to say thank God for this baseball team because they have given us a lot of great memories. We still have a long way to go to get where we want to get, but we're closer than we were two days ago. I'm very proud to be a part of this program."
CENTERFIELDER TYLER HOLT
On his performance against Tulane
"I was swinging it well. Coach has been pushing to be short with the bat through the (zone) and I went through with it. I tried my best to be short with every pitch, every swing I took, and it worked out for me tonight."
STARTING PITCHER MATT FAIREL
On the play by first baseman Dennis Guinn's play to end the second inning
"That was a great time to make that play. It got us in the dugout with no runs, kept the tie ballgame and then we came back and capitalized on that play. It took the momentum into the next inning and carried over to put up some runs. It was a huge play, turning the momentum of the game. It turned it around for us."
