May 26, 2001
Marist
Head Coach John Szefc
Opening Statement: That probably wasn't our prettiest of the year, but it'sa pretty important one, not just for our team but for our program. Last yearwas our first NCAA tournament win, we beat a three-seed, and Long Beach St.was a two-seed this year, it helps in the progression of our program, givesus a little more credibility. We didn't play our prettiest game of theyear, but the bottom line is it was a "W." The reason we came out on top isbecause of these two guys [pitchers Kevin Ool and Tim Bittner] and theirquality pitching, it's really gotten us success all year and this is noexception, they really threw down. I'm really happy for our kids becausethey cam here to win, they didn't just come here to play.
Tim Bittner (Player)
Q: What did you think about the bracket, did you see yourself as theunderdog?
A: I don't feel like the underdog, we came in last night and even though wecame out with a loss we played pretty well. We came out today a littlehungry, some of the guys were a little tired, we had a long night lastnight but we came out today and played pretty tough against a good team.
Q: What were you thinking in the top of the fifth inning?
A: I was just trying to throw my pitch, just trying to throw it so it wouldn't be where it would hurt me. I just reared back and let it go and ended upwith him swinging at the pitch.
Kevin Ool (Player)
Q: What was going on in the ninth with that homerun?
A: With the homerun I left the ball up a little bit, I had the guy 0 and 2and I went with the curveball. After that I knew I had to keep everythingdown and couldn't give up any more.
Long Beach State
Head Coach Dave Snow
Opening Statement: It wasn't in the cards for Long Beach State, Marist is agood ball club. The lefty [Tim] Bittner pitched really well, it was hard forour hitters to get a true approach to him because he was good with hisfastball, good with his change-up kept you honest with the hard slider.He made it tough on us. The five-run inning really hurt us we botched acouple balls in that inning early on I respect their offense: they put theball in play. We had some groundballs up the middle that hurt us, when youput the ball in play consistently you have a chance for things like that tohappen. We just came up a little bit short.
Q: With the five run inning seems like your defense really hurt you, whatwas the feeling on that?
A: Our pitchers defense was poor, we got called for another balk and[Russel] Rohlicek got a sacrifice bunt and threw it away. They turned aroundand bunted the ball up to third base. We bobbled the ball and didn't get itout. Those are the kinds of things - you either get on top of them and youmove forward or you pay the consequences.
Bobby Crosby (Player)
Q: You had a pretty good series, how do you feel right now?
A: from my perspective it really doesn't matter too much. We don't playtomorrow, we don't play tonight - I had an all right series but that doesn't really mean anything right now.
Q: What did you think about their starting pitcher?
A: I thought he was good, he kept me off balance in my first two at bats. Heset the tempo for the whole day, mixing it up and kept our team off balanceand that's what hurt us.
Bryan Kennedy (Player)
Q: Can you say something about your career at Long Beach State?A: I've had a great four years with a great program, it's a pretty sad wayto end it with two and out. We went through ups and downs here for four years.I thank Coach [Dave Snow] for all the coaching I've received, I loved everyminute.