June 7, 2002
Georgia Tech Head Coach Danny Hall
“It was a very good night for us. I thought a key was that Kyle Bakker got three outs in the first inning, and we were able to score a run in the first inning. And the second time through the order, I thought our guys locked in on Core, and were able to score in the fourth and fifth innings.”
“Bakker was outstanding. He may have gotten a little tired, but he gave us seven strong innings and it was just an outstanding game by our team.”
“(Remole) had some big hits for us, and I think it really jumpstarted the offense, and that’s the way its been with different guys coming through at different times all year.”
(on getting on Core)
“It was a case that we had a good week of practice, and I honestly felt like Core was a guy that we had a chance to hit, and we did. I think that early we let him off the hook a little bit, he cut some losses where maybe we could have scored more than one run in the first inning , and the outs that we hit early were hard outs. I felt that at some point in time, we would get to him, and we did.
I think our guys were happy to finally see a right-hander, instead of a lefty, and I felt like he was the kind of guy that we’d have a good chance to hit.”
(on looking ahead)
“We understand that unless we get to 51 wins that our season is over, so I don’t think there’s any guy either here next to me or in the locker room that will get complacent. We’re going to work hard tomorrow to get to 51 wins and if we do, we’ll celebrate.”
Second Baseman Eric Patterson
“The big thing for me is that I’ve been in a slump lately, and I just wanted to come out relaxed. I knew Bakker would throw a good game, and so if we jumped out on them early, we’d have a lot of confidence later on throughout the game.”
Pitcher Kyle Bakker
“It’s always great to have big innings, but at the same time, you kind of get out of a groove. But, when your team is playing like that behind you, and scoring that many runs, it makes pitching so much easier.”
Designated Hitter Clifton Remole
(on what the baseball looked like) “It looked like a freaking watermelon up there. I don’t know what it was, all the energy on this team, it was awesome.”
(on his off time) “I worked with coach Stricklin a lot and tried to get myself prepared, as I could go in any time that they bring a righty in, so I try to keep my mind focused on the game.”
Florida Atlantic head coach Kevin Cooney
“The story of the game is Mr. Bakker came out and did a great job and shut us down early, good offensive team, put the ball in play, they run real well and it’s tough to turn double plays on them and most plays at first base they beat out and extended innings and that helped them out. I was very impressed with the way they swung the bats. I thought their second baseman played a great game on the field and had chances and is a good little ball player.”
“It’s a three game series and we’ll play hard tomorrow hopefully to a little better job on the mound and start things off and hopefully hit early in the games to get us going. If we hit then we play well and hopefully that will be the case tomorrow.
“Have to play the normal game that we play and play things different like hitting three homeruns, then we are going to strike out a lot so I don’t think anyone in the batters box is going to take that kind of approach. Their pitching looked better than our pitching tonight.”
“It’s a three game series, I don’t remember the last time that we were beaten that badly. That score only counts once, it doesn’t matter what it was, what matters is that we lost. We have to go out there and make this into a three game series.”
“We look at the primary guys in the bull pen, but when we were down six runs in a hurry, there is no sense in using them. We went with a guy who is one of our better bull pen guys.”
Center fielder Gabe Somarriba: “He worked in and out in, and out and a slider. He did keep it off balance and when the pitcher does that, he is hard to hit.”
Right fielder L.J. Biernbaum: “I saw the ball fine tonight. They had good pitches. I will put this behind me and tomorrow is another day.”
