May 27, 2001
Losing Team - Texas Longhorns
Head Coach Augie Garrido
Opening Statement: My view of the game was that it was a game of being opportunistic on Stanford's part. The eigth inning turned the game around and their pitchers did a great job especially in situations which we had a runner on third and less than two outs. They got two key double plays in that situation that made a significant difference in the outcome. To shut down a rally in the eighth was a great play by the pitcher. The difference was probably one single with the bases loaded in the eighth, they got it and we didn't. Ours converted into a double play and they converted into two runs. I'm very proud of the players, I have tremendous respect for the Cardinal club, they're well coached, great athletes, great sportsmen, gentlemen on the field - extremely competitive. I think our players deserve all the same kind of comments about them.
Q: Can you talk about the pitching tonight?
A: The pitching was great, I think the players played great. We played hard, we made some mistakes, some balls became problems for us - I see things like that happen in the big leagues all the time. It's a game of inches, it's baseball.
Ryan Hubele (Player)
Q: How does it feel to lose those two games today?
A: It's tough, it's tough to get left in field. We fought hard the entire tournament, a lot of people didn't think we'd be here. We did a great job of pulling through and sometimes things just don't work out your way. Stanford's a good ball club and they came back like great clubs do. We're proud of our team, we fought all 19 innings.
Ben King (Player)
Q: Did you think you'd have more offense with Stanford having to go through so many pitchers?
A: Stanford always has good pitching, every single guy they have is quality. We knew they were going to have good pitching, we were just going to battle.
Ray Clark (Player)
Q: What was working for you tonight?
A: I felt like my curveball tonight really helped me set up my fastball and my changeup. I think that's what worked. I kept them guessing . I had three different pitches I could throw when I wanted to.
Winning Team - Stanford Cardinal
Head Coach Mark Marquess
Opening Statement: There's not much to say, unbelievable effort by both teams. I don't find two better college baseball games. Great games, extra inning, some clutch performances by Texas this evening, the three run homer to tie the first game - then we came back with a clutch hit. Just a great college baseball game, great defense, great pitching. Their pitcher was phenomenal, he put the curveball in there. We finally got to him and got a couple of hits - it was a great win for Stanford Baseball and for our program. It's been a great ride, it was nice to see our fans into it.
Q: You're last two losses have been by one run, and after these two one run victories - what does that tell you?
A: I think that shows what type of team we are: piching and defense. I think we made one error the whole weekend - this team's going to set a [Stanford] fielding percentage record. We have some good players that we've been consistent with. We're a better hitting team than the first two thirds of the season, but the trademark of this team is pitching and defense. I can't compliment Coach [Tom] Kunis enough for what he's done with a very young pitching staff.
J.D. Willcox (Player)
Q: What was happening in the eighth and ninth inning today?
A: Pretty much what you have to do is focus and treat every situation the same. We play a really tough schedule every year, which really prepared us for these games today. I knew that the defense was behind me today and that's the most important thing. If I just threw the ball over the plate I knew Ken [Tirpack] would take care of it. The defense was playing really solid behind me, they've played unbelievably all year. I just focused and treated it like any other game as much as I could.
Andy Topham (Player)
Q: With two homers today was your confidence up?
A: Definitely, I'm feeling a lot more patient and more confident in myself. I'm just going to go out there and do what I can and hope that it takes care of itself.
Carlos Quentin (Player)
Q: What about that last inning in the first game today?
A: Well they had just brought in a new pitcher and he was throwing pretty hard, on the first pitch he threw a wild pitch so I was pretty much just sitting on a fastball on the next pitch. I got it, it was over the plate, I didn't try to do too much with it.