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2004 NCAA ATLANTA REGIONAL
Game Six: Georgia Tech 5, Texas Tech 3
Post Game Quotes
Texas Tech Head Coach Larry Hays
“First I want to contgratulate Georgia Tech. They’re a good team, good champions and I hope they do well and hope they go all the way. They’re a first-class group. I want to also congratulate them for putting on a good tournament, all the people involved, the NCAA people and the whole bunch just did a great job. When you get beat, you don’t enjoy that but they did their part.
“In this tournament, our starting pitching just kind of let us down a little bit. Our starters really haven’t been the key to our club this year in some ways, but they’ve always gotten us to the fifth or sixth. They didn’t do that this tournament and that really hurts. It caused us to use Gerstner wrong, and other things. And then you add to it that we just couldn’t get a big hit. We had several opportunities today and just could not get a big hit. But that’s baseball. We went a month there where we could get a hit any time we wanted one, and I don’t think we enjoyed that enough, because we trailed off a little bit at the end. But I’m proud of my team, I thought we had a good year and I appreciate their efforts.
How would you rate the season?
“I’m proud of this team. I think they played hard and stayed with it. When you’ve got all new players, it’s a big adjustment. Any coach will tell you, when you’ve got that many new players, you’re very lucky to get this far and I think it says a lot about the character of this group and the competitiveness of it. We’ve been down 5-1 before and won games like that. They really felt like we still had a chance. We did a couple of things that hurt us but we still felt like we could win. That’s what you want as a coach — a bunch of guys that think they can win.
On reliever Corey Gerstner:
“He’s a guy that doesn’t consider himself a pro prospect, so he says, ‘why not bring me back?’ You can’t argue with that. He’s got a big heart. You can win with guys like him. He’s a guy who can go nine innings. Our starting pitching yesterday just killed us, because we had to bring him in. But if we could’ve started him today and then brought McGowan back for the last game, we would have been a much better team.
On Georgia Tech pitcher Andrew Kown:
“He did a great job and had a good day. He had great command of all his pitches and did a good job keeping us off balance. He was always thinking opposite of what we were thinking — when we thought he was throwing in, he’d go out and when we thought he was going out, he’d throw in. He had his game today.
Georgia Tech Head Coach Danny Hall
“First I’d like to congratulate Texas Tech. They have an outstanding ballclub. I’ve known Larry for a while and he’s a great coach. The fact that they came from behind last night to win and then battled us right to the end today says a lot about their team. I’m very proud of my team. I think we did a lot of the little things pretty well, not only today, but the whole tournament. Andrew Kown did a great job pitching out of trouble and battled late into the game and gave us everything he had. Certainly we got some key hits, and we made some great defensive plays. Trapani’s defensive play late was a key one, and then Hawranick throwing Brady out in the ninth inning was a key defensive play. I’m very happy and proud of this team, and we’re certainly looking forward to a chance to play again next weekend here at home.
Georgia Tech Second Baseman Eric Patterson
[Catch in second inning, surprised they didn’t send runner from third?] “That’s kind of a tough call at third base when the outfielder is coming in and the second baseman is going out. As a baserunner you don’t know who’s calling for that ball. It just so happened I was closest to it and had a beat on it. It was a tough play, and I just wanted to see it into my glove and make sure we got an out. I just turned and threw it in. Good thing he didn’t go, who knows which way it would have gone.
“I’m more excited about the way our team is playing than I am about the draft. If we go out and guys understand their role and play their role, than Monday (draft) will take care of itself. That’s kind of the approach we’ve taken all year. We’ve put the draft and all that stuff totally in the background and just focused on Georgia Tech.”
Georgia Tech Pitcher Andrew Kown
“Early on I was feeling good about my breaking ball. I think that helped me out late in the game especially because I was able to get that over on 0-0 pitches and keep them off-balance. Later in the game, my fastball got up in the count and I went back to my breaker. Just keeping the fastball down in the zone was huge for me today, and not throwing the same pitch twice kept them off balance.
“It’s been like that all year pitching behind Micah. He always set the bar pretty high for me, and Burks threw great. It just gave me the confidence to know that I needed to just go after hitters and throw my stuff in the zone and let me fielders do the rest.
