University of North Carolina Athletics
NCAA Chapel Hill Regional Game Five Quotes
June 2, 2013 | Baseball
Game 5: Florida Atlantic 6, Towson 5
Florida Atlantic Head Coach John McCormack
Opening Statement:
“Well, in these tournaments someone mentioned you win and
continue and go on, or you go home, and our guys did not want to go home today.
They did not want to leave that dugout. We have a lot of older guys that this
means a ton to, like the guy sitting to my left [Corey Keller], Mark Nelson and
Jake Meiers. Jake Meiers reminded me of the pitcher in Major League – 'Coach, I gave you all I got' – which he did. He was
fantastic, the whole group was fantastic. And Hugh [Adams], how he doesn't make
some All-American teams is beside me, but I don't vote on those things. Just
happy we get another chance to play. If you're in the dugout and you're in that
box you've got a shot to win.”
On how concerned he
was after Towson scored three runs in the first inning:
“I can't tell you that. I was just hoping…Jake [Meiers] has
a tendency to be a very emotional guy, and that emotion feeds into energy and
sometimes he has a hard time controlling, and his pitches were up, and his
breaking ball wasn't sharp. He's that old-time sinker guy where the more tired
he is the better off he is. When he's fresh and feels a little frisky, we are
in trouble because things kind of flatten out a little bit on him. Once he kind
of weathered that storm, he settled down and was able to take a deep breath he
was a lot better. That's exactly what we thought we were going to get out him,
five innings and a couple of runs, six or seven hits. If you look at the
numbers, that's about an average day. The one thing we've done when Jake
pitches all year is we've scored some runs, so we get into some of these games
and we seem to feel like we are okay.”
Senior OF Corey Keller
On his go-ahead RBI
in the ninth inning:
“I was kind of shocked to see that they were walking
[Brendon] Sanger. The guy struck me out the last at-bat, so he had a shot
again, and that's what they were thinking. First pitch, I was just looking for
something up, around belt-high, and he hung a slider there and my hands just
reacted to it. That's basically it.”
On what has led to
his success in the past two games:
“I changed my approach a few weeks back. I've just been
looking for pitches up in the zone and trying to hit to my power side, which is
the left side of the field. So, any pitch that I can kind of yank my hands in
on, I've been trying to do that. I guess I've hit some balls like that earlier
in the season that weren't getting out, and now they are finally barreling and
getting out.”
Towson Head Coach Mike Gottlieb
Opening Statement
"What I'm going to say is not any disrespect to Florida
Atlantic, I don't know if they made a mistake all game. But a wise man told me
a long time ago you don't win one-run games. You lose them. I thought we made
too many mistakes certainly on the bases to win a tie ballgame. To Florida
Atlantic's credit, they didn't make any mistakes. So they played, looking back
memory serves me, a mistake-free game and we didn't and they had a one-run lead
that held up."
On the swinging
strike call to end the game:
"To be honest with you, I was not surprised. I thought I had
a pretty good angle. I was not surprised that he said he swung and I really
have no beef with him. I'm not going to leave the ballpark today saying Towson
was robbed. Towson was not robbed. I thought it was a fair call. And if I
didn't feel that way I wouldn't have said a word. I just didn't think it was a
bad call."
Sophomore 1B Brendan Butler
On the experience of
playing in the NCAA Regional:
"To be honest with you, I'm speechless. All we've been
through all year, it's been a lot, we've fought a lot of adversity, but I have
to thank Coach Gottlieb and all the coaches and the parents for helping us
fight and stay positive this whole year. It's been a lot. But all in all it's a
championship year. I'm proud of what our team has done."
On the swinging
strike call to end the game:
"You never want a game to end like that but it is what it
is. What can you do?"
