University of North Carolina Athletics
St. John's 9, North Carolina 5 - Quotes
June 3, 2012 | Baseball
June 3, 2012
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2012 NCAA Chapel Hill Regional
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Game 6: St. John's 9, North Carolina 5
St. John's Head Coach Ed Blankmeyer
Opening Statement
"Mike [Fox]'s club, they played their guts out. We had that storybook ending yesterday and maybe took the wind out of their sails. Sometimes it's destiny. I thought we brought our `A' game, I thought we were playing our best baseball coming into this. Mike's club wasn't at their best, but I thought we played very, very well. Our starting pitching all three games was solid. I'm proud of these guys, after a tough start...we were trying to find ourselves, but towards the end of the season I felt that we were a good club and had a chance to do something special. Hopefully we can continue that trip"
On breaking through into the Super Regional
"Experience in the setting. I think what was a real key factor was we'd played [ECU] and we'd played [North Carolina] so there was a comfort level. It's about playing good baseball. It's about good starting pitching and it's about catching the ball and offensively I thought we were really starting to swing the bats. This time of the year there's a lot of good clubs out there. It's just about playing good baseball. That's good enough and you're going to beat somebody."
Shortstop Matt Wessinger
On what this means for the program
"This is unbelievable. I knew we had a good team to come to this point and win a regional. This is probably the biggest moment in my career here. It shows that we can play good baseball too. We can play with anybody in the country and I think we showed that today."
Leftfielder and Regional MVP Jeremy Baltz
On the way they had been playing
"I don't know what exactly flipped the switch, but we were playing better baseball down the stretch. We tried to get back to the basics and tried to play our baseball. We're on a pretty good win streak right now, winning the Big East Tournament and coming here against one of the best programs in the country, one of the most storied programs, and it's just an honor. It's a great experience."
North Carolina Head Coach Mike Fox
Opening Statement
"You have to give [St. John's] all the credit. They came down here and just played terrific and certainly outplayed us in every facet of the game tonight. Congratulations to them and my hats off to them. No matter how many times I do this, it's always the worst. This game can be pretty cruel to you at times and to think that way you learn so much from playing it. I'm proud of my team beyond belief. I don't think anyone knows except for the guys in the locker room what all we had to do just to get to this point. We did good."
On gaining experience for a young team
"Every coach will tell you can't coach or teach experience, you just have to get it. It's part of it. I think Luis Paula grew up, if he's in another one next year it won't be new to him. We hope the big games we've been in and playing in front of a lot of people in a regional will help us down the road and help our young guys."
Catcher Jacob Stallings
On the 7th inning
"We had some guys on. I was able to draw a walk and we just felt like Cody was going to get a big hit for us. I guess it felt like momentum was in our favor a little bit there. Cody just missed one and Shell couldn't out the barrel on one but it doesn't come down to just those two at bats. We had other opportunities, I had opportunities, other guys had opportunities, we just couldn't quite get it done."
