May 31, 2003
NCAA BASEBALL REGIONAL (at Stanford, CA)
Game 4 - Stanford 13, Richmond 6
Stanford
Head Coach Mark Marquess Opening Statement
"Tremendous pitching performance by John [Hudgins], obviously. You spot them four in the first just to make things interesting, I guess. He settled in, had 12 strikeouts, gave up four of his eight hits in the first or second inning. Offensively, we did a good job. We scored there in the first, but then they put a four-spot on the board and that's tough. We hung in there, came back and tied it, then hit a homerun and took the lead. I was vey impressed with their pitcher, I thought he did a good job. His pitch count got up a bit, but he hung in there and made some good pitches. We fortunately got a couple balls up, and hit them...the two homeruns were obviously critical for us, that put us over the hump. It was back and forth all the way, but the bottom line is that it was a great pitching performance after that first inning, and we battled back and got some runs, and played some good defense."
RHP John Hudgins on his first inning, in which he gave up four runs
"I thought my command was a little off at the beginning...sometimes you're into a situation where you almost have too-good stuff, and you try to throw too hard and the ball gets up in the zone. It's just excitement from coming out for the first game of the postseason, and maybe it got to me a little bit. On top of that, they're a great-hitting ballclub, so if you make a mistake they're going to hurt you.I felt like my command came back as we went on...I started hitting spots, and my curveball ended up being a real big pitch for me.
C Ryan Garko on UC Riverside starting pitcher AJ Shappi
"He's not a guy that's going to dominate you with his stuff, he's just going to nibble and try to get you to get yourself out. The second time around, we didn't swing at bad pitches, and we got in plus counts so he had to come into us a bit. I think the real key for us was seeing the ball up...we were able to drive some balls and do some things."
UC Riverside (Quotes Coming After Game 5)