APPALACHIAN STATE 6, No. 15 VIRGINIA 5

NCAA DIVISION I BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP - CHARLOTTESVILLE REGIONAL

JUNE 3, 2012 • CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. • DAVENPORT FIELD

POSTGAME QUOTES

 

Appalachian State

Appalachian State Head Coach Chris Pollard

Opening Statement:
"I'm just really proud of our kids. Virginia has one of the best teams in the country. To come here and stand toe-to-toe with them is a tremendous credit to the toughness and resiliency of our players. I thought Seth Grant did a great job coming here and grinding away. He went out there most of the day with just a fastball and pounded away to get it done. It's a tremendous credit to his toughness to be able to give us six good innings off of one pitch. I thought it was a great job by our bullpen - Frankoff and Hyatt - to come when UVa had seized momentum back. They made some tough pitches in some key spots. We weren't perfect all day. Obviously we had four errors, but we competed and made plays when we had to. That has been the mark of this team all year and I could not be more proud of them."

On Nathan Hyatt:
"It speaks to his toughness for him to come back and pitch after an outing that was not up to our standards and not up to his standards. To come out and basically have 4,000 people rooting against you and get those final three outs, speaks to his toughness."

On getting ejected:
"I haven't been thrown out since the 2010 season so I really went almost three years without an ejection. You can't argue a checked swing. Sometimes you get a little bit of a leash in a big, key spot like that."

On Virginia:
"To compete against a program that is perennially an Omaha contender is a great honor. I told Coach O'Connor how impressed I was with the job he has done with the team and with the program. They do it with a ton of class. He has certainly one of the best, if not the best, coaching staff in the country. To be able to be in the opposite dugout from those guys, in this atmosphere, was just special."

Pitcher Seth Grant

On his approach:
"Our pitching staff tries to attack hitters the whole game, whether there is nobody on or the bases are loaded. We always try to stay with our approach, which is what has gotten us to this point in the season. I tried to move the fastball around and get some soft contact."

On pitching with a six-run lead:
"That's huge for me as a starting pitcher. Early in the game, it is nice to see our guys go out and swing the bats like that and be aggressive on the offensive half. It gives you a lot more confidence. When you get that big of lead, your job is to go out there and throw strikes. I didn't do the best job of that but I found a way to get out of it."

On Coach Pollard getting ejected:
"Coach does not get ejected very often so the way we feel as a team is that when he does get ejected, it is because he is standing up for us and fighting for our team. That does pump us up. I think that at that point in the game we were excited anyway. We were smelling it and we just wanted to get those last six outs."

On beating two power conference teams:
"I think a lot of people thought that we'd come up here and just be happy being here. We came up here and played our brand of baseball and stayed aggressive. If we stay aggressive offensively and defensively, we have a pretty good chance to win games."

Second Baseman Hector Crespo

On his diving save in the eighth:
"I have been watching [Keith] Werman for three years and I know he is a great player. He hit it sharply and I was able to dive and catch it. I'm glad that I was able to step up for my team and I'm really happy that I made that play. He hit it pretty well."

On beating two power conference teams:
"We've beaten big teams before but this is great. These are two, back-to-back opponents from great conferences. We aren't just happy winning. We know we can compete with anyone in this country."

Virginia

Virginia coach Brian O'Connor

Opening statement:
"Appalachian State played very well today. They hit in the clutch early in the game. They were very, very aggressive and took the fight to us and got us back on our heels. I'm proud of our guys that we were able to crawl back into it. Lewicki did a nice job sucking up the game for us. Crockett was really good and so was Thompson. We just didn't have enough to get a couple more clutch hits and do what it takes to beat a good ball club like they have. We have to deal with it and we have to be ready to play in an hour against a good Oklahoma club and we have a chance to show what we're made of. "

On Seth Grant:
"Seth did a nice job. Obviously he is a big kid who has a nice arm. He did live on the edge. I think what is a big part of the game is that we did not capitalize when he gave us opportunities and they capitalized against Lewicki when they had opportunities. That was pretty much the story of the game. I think Seth is a fine pitcher. You can see why he's good. When he gives you opportunities like we had, to be champions you have to capitalize on them."

On Artie Lewicki:
"Obviously I think that pop-up to begin the game obviously changed the first inning. But in that second inning they were very aggressive. Rather than bunting they hit and ran. He didn't get over to cover first. He ran and he was late. If he gets over there right away, you collect the second out and it's a completely different inning. To App State's credit, they put pressure on him. They were taking good, aggressive swings against him. You put up a five run inning like that, those are hard to come back from."

Virginia pitcher, Artie Lewicki

On today's outing:
"I think just early I wasn't able to keep the ball down. I struggled to throw strikes early. Pitches just weren't going well too early. I felt I settled down later though. I tried to keep our team in it the rest of the game."

On the five runs in the second inning:
"That was a blow but it didn't really take me out of it completely. It was tough seeing five runs put up there but I knew it was early enough. Our coach always preaches to us that you can overcome big numbers early and it was only the second inning so I figured we could come back and we almost did."