May 26, 2001
Stanford Cardinal
Head Coach Mark Marquess:
Opening Statement: It was just a great college baseball game: well pitchedby both the starting pitchers and a great job of relief by [Mike] Wodnickifor us. I thought they did a good job of putting the bat on the ball, theybacked up their hits in the second inning and got the two runs. And we hitthe ball hard, harder than it showed on the scoreboard, we hit a lot ofballs at people and we just couldn't back them, except for the one inning.We executed the squeeze, which was a big play got some momentum. We had somegreat defense, that was one of the things that helped us, gave us a fewextra outs. It was a great game, great atmosphere, we're fortunate to comeout on top, it was a big win for us.
Q: You said this year that you've had to manufacture runs this year, andwith that squeeze today, is that pretty typical for you?
A: Well, at times we have, you have to sometimes, last weekend we scored abunch, but a lot of that has to do with the competition - good pitchingperformance against us. I thought their left-handed pitcher did a great jobof changing speeds and mixing it up. We executed the squeeze and finallygot something going. It was a good win.
Q: Were you a little nervous about how your freshman would perform in theirfirst tournament game?
A: I was, Sam [Fuld] hit the ball well, the triple really got us jacked up,and Carlos [Quentin] hit a double later on. Our freshmen aren't freshmanthis time of year anymore, they play more like sophomores, at least I hopethey do. Sammy had a great game for us.
Chris O'Riordan (Player)
Q: When you were standing at second base, what went through your mind whenthey called the steal?
A: I was excited to get the steal there because for the pitcher it wasreally long to the plate and he wasn't really holding me on that much. Hehad a two-strike count, he wasn't paying that much attention to me. I wasable to get a good lead, I was excited to get the steal sign, I knew get agood jump and steal the base and get something going for us.
Sam Fuld (Player)
Q: What about the squeeze, what were you doing at the plate, what were youthinking?
A: I've never done a squeeze before in my life, I was thinking about gettingit down and not showing it too early. I just wanted to do what I've beendoing all along in practice.
Q: What about the atmosphere here tonight, you're first postseasonexperience?
A: It's amazing, it's something I've never experienced before. It's athrill, it's still a little surreal right now.
Mike Wodnicki (Player)
Q: What was working for you tonight?
A: Well, I threw 29 total pitches and 28 of them were fastballs. So, my jobright there was just to go in there and throw the ball over the plate andsee what I could do. I know I've got a great defense behind me, so I justthrew it and hoped I could get them out.
Losing Team (Marist)
Head Coach John Szefc
Opening Statement: I have to say that even though we got beat, when thefourth-ranked team in the country has to throw down a squeeze bunt with twostrikes in the seventh, then my guys played pretty good. It's not a knock onMark [Marquess] because that's a great play in that situation, that's a goodcall by him. I'd like to think that we were playing pretty good in thatsituation at that time. We struggled in the middle innings to score someruns, we didn't take advantage of some opportunities that we had. When you're playing a team like this, it's tough to play close with them. You've goto get ahead of them, and you've got to stay ahead. Especially at the homeballpark because it's tough to close them when it's tight the whole way tothe end. I'm very confident that we'll come back and play a very goodballgame tomorrow like we did last year in the second game of the regionals.
Chris Tracz (Player)
Q. Can you talk about your performance tonight?
A. To start off the game, I felt pretty good and then - if I didn't have achangeup, I don't know what the score would have been. I kind of relied onthat pretty much every batter and all through the game. In the seventhinning, I went back out there and got a few missed locations and they got afew hits and the squeeze, obviously, I felt pretty good out there, but Imade some mistakes.
Ben Cueto (Player)
Q. What was the conversation after the steal?
A. Coach Szefc wanted to make sure that with the guy on third base, we hadto bear down for the second and third outs. At the time it was one out - itwas more pep talk to get us focused.
Q. What kind of message does your performance send?
A. It sends a big message. We're a bunch of hustlers, we'll take you down tothe end, we'll never give up, we'll play solid defense and the pitching willalways be there and tomorrow we'll be ready again.