Pepperdine-Missouri Postgame Quotes
6/5/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 5, 2006
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Pepperdine Quotes
Head Coach Steve Rodriguez
On losing in the championship game for the third straight year:
It's frustrating. I do believe we're the better team, but sometimes it's not the better team that always wins. It's just the team that gets hot at the right time and we didn't. You have to give Missouri credit; when they had guys in scoring position they took advantage of it. We made some mistakes and they capitalized on it. We had a couple chances early in the game with guys on second and third with two outs but we just couldn't get the big hit when we needed it. The past couple weekends that's what we've been good at is getting that big hit. I'm sure it's frustrating for everyone that has gone through this the past three years, but the truth is that God has given us a blessing in regards to us being able to get to this point. There are not too many teams in the country that have this opportunity. The kind of guys we have on the team and the character they have is great. Although we didn't come out and take advantage of it I still feel very blessed.
On having home field advantage:
It was nice being able to host a regional. You can see the success teams have when they do host. There's definitely a home-field advantage. We just didn't get the hits. I'm not comparing us to anyone. We just didn't get the hits when we needed them. It was a valiant effort on their part and we just couldn't get the breaks when we needed them. It happens; it's baseball.
On today's loss:
I think our inability to throw strikes when we had to and the walks hurt us a bit. They always come back to bite you at some point. We didn't put ourselves in the best of situations. It's been a regional based on pitching. Usually pitching and defense win the ballgame and unfortunately we didn't have either.
Starting Pitcher Barry Enright
On starting:
I felt fine. I came in and the adrenaline was going, it just didn't end up going my way.
On Missouri's pitching:
They obviously had a lot of depth in their pitching. They had two freshmen pitch complete games yesterday. They started a pretty good pitcher today and they ended up getting the job done.
Catcher Chad Tracy
On today's loss:
It's not fun to get to the final day three years in a row and lose in the championship game, but we just have to build on what we have and work on getting past this level. You just have to come back next year and try it again. I definitely think we're amongst the best in the country now and people know it and we're going to continue to be that way.
Missouri Quotes
Head Coach Tim Jamieson
I can't say how proud I am of our 25-man roster and our coaching staff and administrators and to the committee for giving us the opportunity because I'm sure there were some people who questioned whether or not we belonged here. We faced a lot of adversity this season with injuries and we had a lot of preseason accolades, which I think now we validated that. We're healthy and we're playing like we're supposed to be playing. This isn't a farce; this is who were supposed to be. The efforts and the commitments from our guys, especially in the last four weeks was something special.
On losing the first game on Friday:
We didn't look beyond the one game we were playing because you start thinking of what we have to and you can create a monster for yourself, so you just focus on that game and it's a cliché but if you don't do that you're not going to win.
I thought Enright was really courageous to go out there with two days rest and pitch well. We swung the bats well. This time of the year guys will do whatever it takes to play and fortunately we were a little bit better and that inning to give us a 4-0 lead was big.
Starting Pitcher Taylor Parker'
On starting today's game:
I found out during batting practice. I was just trying to keep everything more like a relief appearance. I just focused on getting an out and then getting another out and stringing as many together as you can. I just try to get ahead in the count; the more I got ahead the better success I had, so it worked out well.
Designated Hitter Jacob Priday
On hitting:
The past couple days we've been winning one-run games. Today we got eight runs. We hadn't been hitting all weekend and today we got it together and we had 14 hits and eight runs. We got runs when we needed them.
On returning to Fullerton:
Going back there is going to be big for us and hopefully we can change the outcome. Most guys on this team know what it's like to play there, so we just have to go out there and play.
