May 29, 2009

2009 NCAA Baseball Championships
UC Irvine Regional - Cicerone Field
Game 1 Quotes - Virginia

Opening Statement from coach Brian O'Conner...

O'Conner: It obviously was a great win for this team. Our plan worked and that plan was to battle Strasburg the best we could and be very aggressive in the batter's box. I think he had 18 or 19 walks in 118 innings for the season so we knew he was going to be around the zone. Our hitters went up there and were very aggressive early in the count. When we got deep into counts we just tried to fouls balls off and put balls into play hopefully getting his pitch count up.

For me the story of the game was Robert Morey. I felt this match-up was all build up of Strasburg against Virginia's lineup and really, I thought it was going to come down to our starting pitcher and our defense. I felt that at some point in the game we'd be able to scratch across a couple of runs. We did that and Morey stepped up and pitched a great game for us and the guys followed behind him in the bullpen. We have a chance tomorrow to play in the 1-0 game for the opportunity to go to the championship.

Phil Gosselin on homerun in the bottom of the first inning...
Gosselin: I was going up there looking for a fastball. I knew he was gong to be around the plate. Like coach said, he doesn't walk many guys and has real good command but that was one of the few mistakes that he made. He left the ball over the plate and supplied most of the power and I just had to put my barrel on it. Luckily we were able to jump out to a lead which gave Robert some confidence on the mound and everybody else followed it.

Gosselin on adjusting to a pitcher who throws over 100 mph...
Gosselin: We mostly compared him to Alex White last week. We face him in the ACC Tournament and he can get it up there pretty good. We were going to attack fastballs and be real aggressive and bring the fight to the pitcher. It was going to be no different with Strasburg. We were obviously facing a pretty stiff challenge. He is as good as it gets in the college game. We were able to get some big hits when we needed them and come through in the clutch.

Morey: This was definitely one of my better games. The hardest thing was getting through the first inning and putting up a zero. Phil came up huge in getting us that one run and I just tried to stay relaxed.

Morey on getting an early lead...
Morey: You can't get much better than that in the first inning just getting one. I knew if I kept pushing zeros that we could reach out and win.

Gosselin on what UVa had heard about Strasburg...
Gosselin: We heard he had a very good curve and obviously an electric fastball but he had given up some hits and some runs so it wasn't like he was un-hittable. We faced some really tough curveballs in practice and pumped up the velocity on our pitching machines. We just heard he had some pretty electric stuff, and he did.

Steven Proscia on Strasburg...
Proscia: He is obviously a dominant pitcher. He showed that in his 13-0 record coming into this game but we went out there with a nice easy approach. We knew if we could just stick the barrel on it he would supply most of the power. We went up thinking fastball and we were able to put good swings on it when we needed to.

Morey on attacking right handed batters with a curveball...
Morey: That is what we have been doing all season, attacking right-handers with breaking balls. Coming into this game we knew they had a good amount of right-handers. We wanted to attack with fastballs and get them to swing and miss with breaking balls.

Proscia on finding out Strasburg was SDSU's starting pitcher for the game...
Proscia: We prepared for him all week. We figured they were going to throw him. We prepared for him and when we found out it was him it was no different. We were just pretty excited. It was a great opportunity to take on a guy that is having one of the best college seasons of all-time. To go against that we saw it more as an opportunity than anything else.

Proscia on preparing for Strasburg...

Proscia: We kept out pitching machines pretty much on the same speed but physically moved closer to it to get some reaction time. We did a lot of just tracking pitches with no swings just to see pitches.

The machine gets around 80-90 miles-per-hour but as we moved closer we got to his speed. We were around 30 to 40 feet. It was pretty close.

O'Conner on fast start...
O'Conner: We started the game off real aggressive and that was important as the home team matched up against someone like Strasburg. Robert was ready to pitch right out of the gate and he responded. I told him Thursday morning at practice he was going to start. We hadn't made the decision until that time and I can tell you he had a smile on his face. He was looking forward to it. Robert has been out our most consistent starter over the past six weeks. I felt like coming into this tournament he was our freshest arm.

O'Conner on having regional experience over SDSU...
O'Conner: I think it always helps. If you haven't been before it can present some problems. Over the past six years we have been in three ACC Championships and six regionals so we've been on this stage before. I've said this before but this team can accomplish anything. They've proven to me all year long that they haven't backed down from anybody or any challenge that has been put in front of them. It doesn't surprise me at all what we accomplished today.

Morey on his excitement coming into the tournament...
Morey: I was excited all week. I prepared all week like I was going to throw regardless if I was going to or not. That's what helped me the most. I stayed level-headed. Coming into today I was really confident. Warming up I felt great. I felt it was a great opportunity for the whole team but I also felt it was a great opportunity for me to see what I had against one of the best pitchers we've faced.

Day One Quotes - San Diego State

TG Opening Statement:

They swung the bats, and definitely knew what they were doing. My guys I thought were pressed and early, but then kind of settled in, we made a game of it late, but unfortunately turned out to be a late showing.

SS on being in regional :I think everybody had their jersey on, this is our first time being in a regional. I was pretty excited to be out there. But it's pretty tough to pitch against a team that you've never really heard of, when you don't have a good scouting report on them, so you've got to face them a first time through, and they put a good bat on the ball. But after that, we're able to get a good game plan, and we kept that way the rest of the game.

TG on Virginia's strong 8th inning: Can't answer that question, I don't know. I know the guy that hit the home run in the first, that's a pretty good swing. They had two I think that scored on wild pitches, but really they were passed balls that put the second runner in scoring position, but you get a slow roller to second base and from that point on it was pitchers going back and forth. And Stephen really shut them down, but late in the game, it's a 2-1 game, we scratched to get a run on them, get some momentum on them. We gotta pitch better than we pitched in the 8th inning we let some balls right there to be hit, and they were. I'm not taking anything away from Virginia I thought they did a heck of a job, I thought their game plan was aggressive early, they settled in, made us throw them some pitches, they did a great job, and did what they needed to do. But to give up 2 runs up in the 8th, when you scratched that 1 run, after being shut out all day, we gotta make that a pitchers game in the bottom of the 8th and we didn't do that. Turn the page, tomorrows another day, we'll be playing again here at four o clock.

Hopefully we have a little bit more on the offensive end, because to me, that's why this game was lost. We had opportunities for somebody to step up there and get a 2-out hit we just couldn't do it. A home run usually is not going to be enough. I think our guys were chomping at the bit, but I think our inexperience showed there in the early innings because we chased some balls out of the zone, tried to be super aggressive, and tried to do too much with the ball. And really, this is a time to kinda take a deep breath, relax, and go out and play. And I'm sure they've learned from todays experience, hopefully we'll be better tomorrow.

TG on Strasburg coming back to pitch again:
Can't answer that. If we don't win tomorrow, there won't be a Monday. If we don't win the next game, there won't be a game for us Monday. So instead of looking ahead to Monday, let's look to tomorrow.

Strasburg on making adjustments:
For the most part they were swinging at fastballs early. We just changed it up. Started going over more signs, just making sure to hide the ball in the glove a little more. Little more sinker, little more changeup, a little more slider early in the count.