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NCAA ATLANTA SUPER REGIONAL
JUNE 10, 2006
GEORGIA TECH QUOTES
GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Danny Hall
On today’s game:
“I’m excited for our team, our fans, and the administration here at Georgia Tech. We have a chance to go to Omaha and play for a national championship, thanks to some very special guys that we have on our team. We’ve been through a lot of battles and injuries, but day in and day out, they never stopped believing that they could play for the World Series. In the game today, Lee Hyde struggled a little bit early but really settled in. We had a couple of big home runs with Whit Robbins’ that gave us the lead and Kindel’s to give us an even larger lead. Lee deserves a lot of credit for never really giving in. I’m very proud of him and the rest of the guys, and I’m just excited that we get a chance to go to Omaha.”
On what it means to make it to Omaha after the disappointment of the past few years
“It’s hard to get there, and only eight teams get a chance to make it to the World Series. The deeper in the post season you go, the harder it it to get there. I’m just very proud that we got it done.”
On thinking about taking Lee Hyde out earlier in the game
“We sent Jared Hyatt to the bullpen at one point, but Lee was just struggling with his command more than anything. But after those first few innings, he started to lock in and hit his off speed pitches for strikes and didn’t have to use his fastball as much.”
On Hodges’ injury
“He can hardly walk, and it’s a major gut check for him to play out there. He had a huge it today to help us too.”
On the chance of Tim Gustafson playing in Omaha
“It’s really hard to say for sure right now. We’ll look at him again this week and see how he throws. Right now, I would say that the chances are that he won’t play.”
On playing in Omaha
“It’s similar to playing in the ACC Tournament with two brackets. It also looks like we could have some company from the ACC teams. Once you get out there, you just have to beat whoever’s there and we’re going to approach it like we did the ACC Tournament.”
On Trapani’s injury
“He hurt a ligament in the back of his knee yesterday. He was begging me to play before the game, and then he wanted to go out on the field in the ninth inning so I finally got him an at-bat. I also wanted to thank our fans for being so great this weekend and for the ovations they gave to all our seniors today. “
On readjusting to being a starter in the post season
“It really hasn’t been that difficult for me. I think it’s harder to go from starter to reliever. The main thing I was trying to do was give the team a chance to win so I really didn’t think about the transition at all”
On the first few innings
“I left some balls up in the zone, and I was having trouble with my command along with not being able to get my off-speed pitches over the plate. I just tried to settle down and started throwing strikes.”
On playing through the pain
“It’s gotten a lot better lately. I really can’t run that well on it and when I hit, I sometimes feel pain shooting through my leg. For the most part, it’s not too bad because I’ve been trying to stay off of it.”
On Tech’s offense and playing in Omaha
“We know that the wind blows out and with the fences being short, it plays into our game. Anyone in our lineup is capable of hitting his home run. With watching it on television and seeing LSU and Florida State hit balls out at will, I really think it favors us in that way.”
COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON QUOTES
Head Coach John Pawlowski
“First of all, congratulations to Georgia Tech. They certainly played well this weekend and certainly deserve to move on to Omaha and earned the right to play for a National Championship. What a great atmosphere this weekend, and they [Tech] played extremely well. I thought we played well early today and I thought that we fought well early with some quality at-bats and then in the middle part of the game, I think it got away from us some. We walked a few guys and they put some runs on the board. They are a very good offensive team and like we’ve talked about and if you make a few mistakes, they can hurt you. They played well. They made the plays, they pitched, they hit and did the things that they needed to do to win.”
“I can’t say enough about what our ballclub has done this year. Unbelievable month for these guys. The last three weeks has been a remarkable feat for what these guys have accomplished. They won the Southern Conference Tournament for the first time, went into a regional and won a regional for a first time and advanced to their first Super Regional for the first time. I told these guys that they have absolutely nothing to hang their heads about. Obviously it’s very disappointing when you lose, for some of these guys it’s their last opportunity to play the game of baseball. But, I’m proud of each and everyone of these guys and I told them that they certainly made the College of Charleston very proud.”
On what the team has learned after going through a Super Regional
“I feel very good about what we did in the Regional out in Lexington. I thought here the biggest difference to me was our approach offensively. When you get a little deeper and deeper into this tournament, you start seeing better quality arms and it makes it tough offensively. We just couldn’t put a lot of bats together, so I think, in my perspective, offensively we’ve got to lock in a little more against better pitching because when you get this deep, everybody can pitch and everybody can play and the difference lies in the arms that we saw. We see good pitching, but not quite the quality that we’ve seen as we entered into the postseason.”
Rightfielder Phillip Coker
On the state of the program after this tournament:
“This has probably been the best year that we’ve had, it’s the furthest we’ve been in the postseason. We have pretty much most of the team coming back, all of our starting pitchers and most of our infield, but unfortunately for Joey [Riddle] and I, this was our last year. We’ve really enjoyed playing here and watching this program get to where it is. We enjoyed this postseason and we played hard, it just didn’t work out, but I think this program can go nowhere but up.”
Leftfielder Joey Friddle
“I’ve only been here one year, but it was the greatest year of baseball in my life. I appreciate Coach P for letting me come here. I gave him a call last summer about coming here and he welcomed me with open arms and I really appreciate that. I know that we’ve got a great recruiting class coming in, all of our pitching and I think we’ll be right here next year, as well.”
Philip Coker
On the difference in Tech’s starter Lee Hyde from the beginning of the game until the end:
“The first inning, he was struggling with his control and would get behind in the count and he’d have to come with his fastball. Then he started throwing his breaking ball for strikes, which was a very good pitch for him today and then he was throwing his changeup for a strike and he just kept us off balance. He did a great job the rest of the game.”
Joey Friddle
“I think the biggest part of it is your offense getting you runs in the game. As a pitcher, once you get those insurance runs you just fall into a groove and I think that’s what he did. And, Tech kept getting runs and he just kept getting more confident.”
