2014 NCAA Baseball Championship - GatorZone.com
NCAA Gainesville
Regional
Monday, June 2, 2014
Alfred A. McKethan
Stadium
Game 6 ? No. 4 College of Charleston 4, No. 2 Long Beach State 2
College of Charleston Post-Game Quotes
Head
Coach Monte Lee
Opening Statement:
?What a great feeling. You have to give a lot of credit to Tyler Thornton today. After giving up two runs in the first inning, he settled in and threw up eight zeroes after that. He?s just been phenomenal for us down the stretch. Offensively we scored early, which is key to our success. I started to worry a little bit. Once we got it to 4-2, I was hoping we would be able to expand our lead, but we just couldn?t find a way to do it. That?s where Thornton took over. He was outstanding today. I?m just really excited and really proud of the way our guys played. They were really loose today for a championship game, extremely loose. I kept telling them we have to have a sense of urgency here, but they were just really relaxed all game long and played very well.?
On winning the regional as a 4-seed:
?I?ll be honest with you, I think this tournament was kind of set up for us based on what we did in the CAA tournament. We played extremely well in the conference tournament, and I think our guys felt that momentum and confidence going into this regional. The big thing in tournament play is winning the first game. Once we won the first game, we felt like we had the momentum going. I think the team understands what their identity is: to score first and score early in the ballgame. Our pitching and defense will keep the lead for us, and that?s what we?ve done all year. Our guys did exactly that over the course of three days.?
#25 Tyler Thornton
On his pitching performance today:
?In the first inning the fastball was elevating and they put the ball in play where our guys weren?t.? After that I worked the ball down and got routine fly balls and ground balls.?
On how the last tournament prepared the team for regionals:
?Facing William and Mary, the third best offense in the country, and being able to shut them out as a staff coming into this regional really gave us a ton of confidence being able to execute pitches and get outs.?
#6 Carl Wise
On the atmosphere in the dugout today:
?The whole game we were relaxed like Coach (Lee) has been telling us to do. At the beginning of the game we always try to have a sense of urgency and score early. As the game went on we coasted, but we were able to put enough across for Tyler (Thornton) to go out there and handle it.?
Long Beach State Post-Game Quotes
Head Coach Troy Buckley
Opening statement:
?I told the team after the game there?s two sides of this from my perspective. One is the coach is competitive, emotional side that looks at how we played, how we came into the game itself. I?m disappointed, there?s no question. We missed free opportunities and not doing things in character like we have done. But, then on the other side there?s the coach who is more of the mentor and the father figure. I?m extremely proud and they have no reason to hang their heads for the season that they had because it?s been a long grind for us to get back to the postseason since 2008. This team has a lot of heart and great leadership with Ino [Patron] and then obviously Garrett [Hampson] here who kind of has to take on that legacy from here on out for the guys that play here. I have to give credit to Charleston. Their guy pitched a well-pitched game. So, it?s disappointing but at the same time really happy for the guys.?
On if yesterday?s delays affected them:
?I don?t? think so. One thing that I try to teach these guys is that there are no excuses. We have to deal with situations and try to control the uncontrollable and certainly last night we had no control over that situation [rain]. What hurt us more is [Nick] Sabo not going very deep in the game, those types of things. But, those were the things that were a little more problematic for us, but I?m proud of the guys. It was a long day for both North Carolina and us yesterday. No excuses on that end; Charleston played well. We gave them some opportunities and they took advantage. That?s just the way it ended up.?
?#4 Ino Patron
On facing Tyler Thornton:
?He was using both pitches for strikes, getting ahead strike one and everybody knows when you get that first strike your batting average goes down a lot because you?re behind in the count. So, he was using both pitches for strikes and he was really effective in that way. It was like we were in defense mode the whole time, just battling and fighting and we were on the tail end of it today.?
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