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BB — Regional 2005 Notes/Quotes

2005 NCAA Regional – Baton Rouge
Notes and Quotes

Game 6: Rice 5, LSU 4

June 6, 2005

  • Rice, the second seed from the Baton Rouge Regional, wins the championship and advances to the Super Regional Round against the winner of the New Orleans Region which is at Game 6 between Tulane and Alabama.
  • Rice wins its seventh consecutive game, its longest streak of the season.
  • Rice is 4-2 in the state of Louisiana this season.
  • This is the fifth time Rice has advanced to the Super Regional (1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005) LSU is 77-24 in NCAA Regional and Super Regional play, including 67-13 at Alex Box Stadium.
  • Opponents have scored first in all four of LSU’s games in the regional and 33 of LSU’s 62 games this season.
  • Nick Stavinoha, the MVP of the regional, ends his season with a seven game hit streak, the longest active streak by an LSU player. Stavinoha has hit safely in 27 of his last 29 games.
  • Attendance for game five: paid, 6,891; actual, 3,765. Attendance through the first six games of the regional: paid, 41,127; actual, 23,093.
  • This was the Tigers’ 101st regional/super regional game and LSU is only the 10th school to reach the century mark in that category.
  • Determann pitched a season high 7.1 innings in the first start of the season with a career strikeout total of nine (7, twice the previous).

LSU Quotes

Head Coach Smoke Laval
On Rice’s performance…
“Their pitchers did a great job, but that’s no secret. Coming in, we knew number one that we had to get great pitching to keep them down a little bit because we didn’t think we’d score many off of them because of the talent they have. The relief ace is the one we got to, and he still had a lot left in him if the game would have continued. They did an outstanding job.”

On what he told the team after the game…
“They can’t take away from the effort all year and their competitiveness. It’s just a game with wins and losses. We try to do the best we can and put ourselves in a position to win ballgames and the guys try to do the best they can each and every time. I don’t think there’s any question. That’s something this entire group can take with them — the effort and competitiveness that they gave.”

On Determann’s performance…
“It was a gutty performance against a pretty good club and they battled him. I think Jason will be the first to tell you. But every time out, I know what I’m getting. It’s not a surprise when he goes out there. It’s not a surprise whether it’s three outs or it’s 21 outs.”

P Jason Determann
On not advancing to a Super Regional…
“You don’t expect to end the season in your own backyard. You see yourself winning a couple games in Omaha and if things go right winning it all. But this is not what we expected.”

RF Nick Stavinoha
On making adjustments from Rice’s starter to their reliever…
“He’s a little unusual. He’s a lot more over-the-top. It’s a little tougher to pick up his breaking ball when he throws it hard. Whenever he had it down in the zone it’s tougher to pick up. Whenever it was up, it was a good pitch to hit. But we had trouble staying off of that low pitch for a while. And then in the middle of the game we did stay off of it and got a couple more walks and that kind of thing. But Pendleton did a great job. He came in and kept us off-balance.”

On his thoughts of the game…
“You have to stay positive the whole time, and we were always right there the whole game. We had our opportunities and just couldn’t capitalize on enough of them. We needed a little bit more fortune with us at some points in the game, but I felt like we were right there in a situation to win the game.”

Rice Quotes
Head Coach Wayne Graham
“I thought (Eddie) Degerman did a great job because he couldn’t hardly catch a break — a couple of bad hops and LSU can hit. He kept us in the ballgame. When he kept us in the ballgame I knew we had a chance because I knew Lance (Pendleton) could throw the ball and we started getting a couple of breaks. It was a great ballgame, and I feel very grateful that we won it.”

C Travis Reagan
“The way this season’s gone with me offensively it’s been a struggle. Coach has kept his faith in me and, he continued to put me into baseball games, thank God. I just wanted to contribute the best I could — do whatever I could to help my team whether it be defensively or offensively. I knew this was a big game. I knew we had to have it and went out there and just did my best for Eddie to give him a good target.”

RF/P Lance Pendleton
“It was a lot of fun. Since I did good it was a lot more fun. Hitting, I was just trying to relax and see the ball and hit the ball. We’ve really been working hard with that the last week. On the mound, I was just trying to go in there and go right at them. If they’re going to beat you, they were going to beat me with my best stuff. I was just real happy with how things went.”

Game 5 (postponed until Monday, 11 a.m.): LSU 8, Northwestern State 4

June 5, 2005
NCAA Representative Mike Knight
Opening Statement…
“Of course, we’ve suspended today’s game and will move it to an 11 a.m. start tomorrow to finish this game. Then we’ll go to Game 6 will be 50 minutes after the completion of this game. Game 5 tickets will be honored, and of course Game 6 tickets will be used for this game also. You can use either or to get into it. We will not clear the stadium between these two games.”

Smoke Laval after rain-interrupted game with Northwestern State:
“I don’t know much about what happened. We’ll wind up playing tomorrow. Edgar Ramirez will come out and start the ball game. (Lane) Mestepey did what he was supposed to do and kept us in there long enough with a very long delay and one long inning in there which is difficult for him. It’s been a while but, with the tightness in his shoulder, I thought he did a better than average job. We got fortunate when they had the bases loaded. A guy rolled over on a pitch and turned a double play and got us a little momentum going there. That’s really about it. It’s difficult — in and out — in a big game with the rain and so forth.

(On whether or not it’s a new game Monday)
“Like Mitch said, he can bring back a couple of guys. Thank goodness we have the lead here, a little one at that. Nothing’s really ever comfortable.

(On whether starting here will hinder momentum)
“Yes. We finally started swinging the bats really well. We’ve got the meat of our order up. Blake Gill is up with first and third with one out. If we put something together there and coast, hopefully you don’t have to get Jason Determann up in the bullpen. It probably does cause a big momentum shift.”

Northwestern State Head Coach Mitch Gaspard
On the performance today of his team…
“Thus far through the ballgame we have eight walks and six errors on the board. It’s tough to have the lead when you do those things, especially a team like LSU. I do think offensively we had a good approach and did some good things, but just missed some opportunities. We had the bases loaded early and didn’t score. But I think our guys were excited to play and were competing hard. This is their first time in a regional in a long time and I do think the atmosphere affected us a little bit. For the most part of the year we’ve thrown a lot of strikes, and the last three days we’ve been averaging about six or seven walks a game. You’re going to get burned when you do those types of things in a regional.”

Game 4: Rice 9, LSU 7

Notes

  • LSU is 76-23 in NCAA Regional and Super Regional play, including 66-12 at Alex Box Stadium.
  • Rice, making its 11th NCAA Tournament appearance — all consecutive, is 45-24 in NCAA play. The Owls are 5-2 in NCAA games at Alex Box Stadium.
  • Rice coach Wayne Graham won the 1,200th game of his college coaching career, which spans 25 years. He is 625-255 in 14 seasons at Rice, after spending 11 years at San Jacinto (Texas) College. The victory by the Owls is their seventh straight, a season high.
  • Rice outfielder Lance Pendleton tied a career high with four RBI on a pair of two-run doubles.
  • Rice allowed seven or more runs for only the ninth time in 61 games this season. The Owls are 3-6 in those games (the other wins: April 26 vs. Houston, May 22 vs. Hawaii).
  • LSU is 1-5 against Rice in NCAA Tournament play. The only Tigers’ win was a 5-4 decision in the opening round of the 1997 College World Series. Rice is 3-0 in regional play against LSU — making the Owls the only team to beat the Tigers three times in regionals — and 2-0 in super regional action.
  • The loss was LSU’s first in its last 11 regional games.
  • Including tonight, LSU has lost the winner’s bracket final of a regional on five occasions. The others were in 2002 to UL Lafayette (5-0), 1999 to East Carolina (11-10), 1997 to South Alabama (11-5) and 1990 to Southern California (5-4). On all four previous occasions, the Tigers came back to win in the loser’s bracket and then avenge the earlier loss with two wins over the unbeaten team.
  • LSU outfielder Ryan Patterson hit his 50th career home run in the eighth inning and his 20th of the season (the first Tiger to reach 20 since Todd Linden in 2001). He had four hits to run his career total to 282, good for fifth place on LSU’s career list. He broke out of a fifth-place tie with Tookie Johnson (1988-91). It was Patterson’s fourth game with 4+ hits this season.
  • Nick Stavinoha’s fourth-inning RBI single extended his hitting streak to five games, the longest active streak by an LSU player. Stavinoha has hit safely in 25 of his last 27 games.
  • LSU lost for only the third time in 21 games this season when hitting multiple home runs.
  • Pitcher Greg Smith allowed eight runs (six earned), a season high. He allowed four runs in three different starts this year, most recently on April 10 against South Carolina.
  • Opponents have scored first in 31 of LSU’s 60 games this season.
  • LSU scored six runs in the top of the eighth, the second straight game the Tigers have had a six-run inning.
  • Attendance for game four: paid, 7,645; actual, 6,631. Tonight’s crowd is the largest of the season at Alex Box. Attendance through the first two days of the regional: paid, 27,494; actual, 15,714.
  • Miami (Ohio)’s 35-8 victory over Quinnipiac in the Austin Regional earlier Saturday set or tied several NCAA Championship records, including some held by LSU and Rice. The 43 total runs topped the previous record of 42, set in LSU’s 29-13 win over Georgia Tech in 1996. The Redhawks had 33 hits to tie the record set by Rice against Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1999.
  • LSU will meet Northwestern State at 1 p.m. Sunday (LSU will be the designated home team). The winner of that game will come back to meet Rice in the championship round at 6 p.m. Sunday (Rice will be the designated visiting team).
  • Tomorrow afternoon’s game with Northwestern State will be the Tigers’ 100th regional/super regional game, which will make LSU only the 10th school to reach the century mark in that category (Florida State 177, Texas 160, Miami-Fla. 146, Southern California 134, Oklahoma State 123, Clemson 117, Cal State Fullerton 112, Stanford 108, Mississippi State 106). All totals are through the end of play on Saturday.

Rice Quotes

Head Coach Wayne Graham
” We did everything right and we barely won. That’s tough. Those guys can hit, and it was a great comeback by LSU. I’m very proud of Joe (Savery). It was a great effort, great pitching and I thought our guys executed some other things pretty well too. We feel very fortunate to win. Like I said those guys can hit.”

LHP Joe Savery
” Like coach says, they’re a great hitting team and I knew I would have to come out with all three pitches and throw them for strikes. If I didn’t, they could hurt me. Even though (Ryan) Patterson got after me a little bit tonight, I was able to locate pretty well. A couple of good defensive plays and the offense was unbelievable behind me, which made it really easy to go out there and throw with a big lead like that.”

RF Lance Pendleton
“I got lucky and ran into some. I was just trying to put good swings on the bat and pick out good pitches to swing at. Luckily I did that and got some hits.”

LSU Quotes

Head Coach Smoke Laval
Opening Statement…
“(Rice pitcher John) Savery was very, very good. He was outstanding through seven (innings). His fastball was there early and they’d stick with the pitch that was working, going straight change and getting it over the plate. He was throwing downhill and did a great job. They got some timely hits. I think Greg Smith did a very good job–good enough to win a ballgame–and that was it. It was a great ballgame, and the teams competed really well.”

P Greg Smith
On his outing…
“Obviously it could have been better. I had a little problem going in on some guys, but the bottom line was I thought I could beat them. I threw a lot of competitive pitches, and Rice just made some good swings on me and put the ball in play. But I thought I could have done a little better.”

PH Blake Gill
On his three-run home run…
“We had a good momentum going, and I just went up there and wanted to keep the streak going. I wanted to get us another base runner and just keep it going. I just happened to get a pitch to hit, got a good piece of it and hit it out.”

OF Ryan Patterson
On his night at the plate…
“I thought Savery kept us off-balance as a team. He kept the ball down really well. I was fortunate enough to have a couple of them go through. But it’s just one of those games where you wish you got that hit when we really needed it at the end of a ballgame.”

On the strikeout call to end the game…
“It shouldn’t really have come down to that. I didn’t agree with it, but you have to remember early in the ballgame when we had a couple of situations where we could have scored some runs and it wouldn’t have come down to that.”

Game 3: Northwestern State 4, Marist 3

Notes

  • Northwestern State is now 2-5 in NCAA Tournament games; its only other victory in tournament play was an 8-2 decision over Illinois State in 1994. The win over Marist was the Demons’ first in four NCAA games in Baton Rouge.
  • Marist is now 3-10 in NCAA Tournament games. The Red Foxes went 0-2 in the tournament for only the second time in school history (1997); they had gone 1-2 in each of their last three appearances.
  • Attendance for game three — paid — 6,479; actual — 1,528. Attendance through the first three games of the regional — paid — 19,849; actual — 9,083.
  • Northwestern State’s Rusty Jones extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a single in the fifth inning.
  • Northwestern’s Marty Dewees had four doubles, and five extra-base hits, in 162 at bats before Saturday’s game. He had two doubles in four at-bats Saturday.
  • Winning pitcher Blake Jones tossed five innings of relief, matching his longest outing of the year. Jones worked five innings against Wichita State on Feb. 13. It was Jones’ 17th scoreless appearance of the season. Coincidentally, starting pitcher Dereck Cloeren’s four-inning effort was his shortest since March 19.
  • Marist’s two-game losing streak to end the season was its first since April 9. That day, a first-game doubleheader loss to Manhattan dropped the Red Foxes’ record to 7-14. They won 26 of 33 games the remainder of the year.
  • Marist first baseman Keith Brachold had two hits Saturday, upping his career total to 263, good for second on the Red Foxes’ all-time list. He snapped a tie with Ryan Brady (1998-2001), who had 261. Anthony Bocchino holds the Marist record with 334 hits from 1999-2002.
  • Brachold hit his team-leading seventh home run of the season in the first inning.
  • Brachold’s season-ending total was one-third of the Red Foxes’ team output of 21 homers in 54 games. That, however, was only three fewer than Marist pitchers allowed all year.
  • Northwestern State improved to 11-6 in one-run games, while Marist dropped to 10-4.
  • Northwestern will meet the loser of the LSU-Rice game at 1 p.m. Sunday.

NORTHWESTERN STATE QUOTES

Head Coach Mitch Gaspard
“An ugly win is better than a pretty loss. We’re not playing very well. Obviously, we’re excited to get the win and our first time in 11 years to do that. That’s a great feeling for our program and what we’re doing, but we certainly had opportunities to extend the lead and get this thing rolling. The bottom line is we got the win and how Blake (Jones) came in tough conditions today with the temperature. He did a great job to keep throwing up zeroes. He competed hard. It’s a victory and that’s the most important thing. Hopefully we can build from that and lead into tomorrow.”

1B Bobby Barbier
“The guys in front of me got on. I had men on base all day. I got the hit there in about the third or fourth, and I got fortunate that he threw me a 1-2 pitch and hit me and I got an RBI.”

RF Marty Dewees
“Rusty Jones was on first base, and he took off to steal. I was just trying to protect him. I saw the second baseman go and cover the bag. I tried to hit it in the four hole, and lucked up and the first baseman didn’t catch it.”

P Blake Jones
“Today was kind of hit and miss. We lost a couple of guys early, I just backed off a little bit and tried to locate and throw the ball to get strikes at the knees and let them get themselves out. It worked.”

MARIST QUOTES

Head Coach Joe Racciua
Opening statement…
“I thought Northwestern played a pretty good baseball game. They defended pretty well and executed a hit and run that was very crucial in that game. Believe it or not we were probably six inches away from getting out of that inning. Because of the hit and run, it worked out for them. When we walked a guy, they hurt us for it. They had some hits, they found some holes and they played the game the right way. I thought we should have taken a lot more advantage of what their arms were doing on the mound. They had walked six guys, they were behind 2-0 and 3-0 on our guys and we just weren’t putting any swings on the baseball. When you get the opportunity to hit in advantage counts, you need to produce. But I thought we played the game that we really wanted to play pitching-wise and defensively. That’s how we’re made and we played exactly how we’re built, we’d just like to have gotten a lot more swings out of us.”

P Jonathan Smith
On his outing on the mound…
“I was just trying to make pitches I thought I could make. I wasn’t trying to overpower anybody, I was just trying to get groundball outs and trying to get ahead of guys. I did a decent job of getting in front of some guys, but the fifth inning was just hard to get out of. I made a couple of mistakes, hit a few guys and hit one to bring a run in. From there I was just trying to get an out and I got a ground ball to get out of the inning.”

1B Keith Brachold
On the team’s lack of offense…
“We only had four hits on the day, so obviously we didn’t take advantage offensively. A couple times we had 2-0 or 3-0 counts and mis-swung or didn’t swing with the authority you’re supposed to swing with in that count. That hurt us offensively. We pitched and played defense which we had been doing all year, just the offense wasn’t there today.”

Game 2: Rice 7, Northwestern State 3

Notes

  • Northwestern State is now 1-5 in the NCAA Regionals and 0-3 in regional round games in Baton Rouge.
  • Rice is 44-24 in NCAA play since the 1995 Regional won by Rice in Baton Rouge. Rice is 4-2 in regional play in Baton Rouge.
  • Attendance for game two — paid — 6,509; actual — 2,565. Attendance for the first day of the regional — paid — 13,370; actual — 7,555.
  • Northwestern State’s Rusty Jones first inning hit to open the game upped his present hitting streak to 14 games.
  • Rice’s Josh Geer pitched his fourth complete game of the season, including his second straight. He pitched a complete game six-hitter versus San Jose State on May 27.
  • Rice will be the home team in the 6 p.m. game against LSU and Northwestern State will be the home team in the 1 p.m. game against Marist. Rice and Northwestern State both won coin flips after the conclusion of the evening game as both home teams won on the opening day of play.

RICE QUOTES

Head Coach Wayne Graham
” The deciding moment really was when Josh (Rodriguez) hit the home run. That turned it around. I thought Josh Geer pitched well enough to win. I thought he threw his best fastball in the seventh, eighth and ninth, and I thought we played a good ballgame. That’s a good ball club we beat.”

RHP Josh Geer
” I felt really good the whole time. I kind of struggled early on, but I felt real good. I left the ball up a lot, but I got first pitch outs and first pitch strikes and just getting ahead really helped me out a lot.”

NORTHWESTERN STATE QUOTES

Head Coach Mitch Gaspard
Opening statement…
” I thought certainly the game was going in the direction we wanted it to go. After six innings, Lonsberry kind of tired early and I thought Johnston came in and did a really nice job. We had our chances and had some guys out there who just couldn’t deliver some big hits when we needed them. But it’s tournament play and we still have an opportunity to come back tomorrow and kind of get some momentum with a win. Overall, considering it was our first regional in 11 years, I felt we did some good things and I certainly didn’t think we played overly tight. In the eighth inning we made some mistakes, but I felt we played at a pretty good tone.”

2B Brandon Morgan
On his home run in the game…
” In the at-bat before, he tried throwing a slider to get me out, and I took them all. I guess I was just sitting on that pitch, put a bat on it and it went out the park.”

Game 1 : LSU 14, Marist 5

Notes

  • Marist is now 3-9 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, 1-1 versus Louisiana teams. Marist beat McNeese State in the 2000 regional in Lafayette, La.
  • LSU is 76-22 in NCAA Regional and Super Regional play.
  • Attendance for game one — paid — 6,861; actual — 4,990.
  • The home run by LSU’s Jordan Mayer in the sixth inning was the first home run allowed this season by Marist pitcher Chris Tracz. His streak of innings this season without a home run reached 103.2 innings prior to Mayer’s two-run homer. (Ironically, Cox Sports Television had
    just put up the graphic showing his innings pitched without a home run on the pitch prior to the home run.)
  • LSU improved to 20-1 in NCAA Regional openers all-time. Its only opening game loss came in an 11-4 defeat to Houston at the NCAA Austin Regional in 1985. The Tigers improved to 16-0 in regional openers at Alex Box Stadium.
  • LSU has now won 10 straight NCAA Regional games. The last time the Tigers suffered a loss in a regional occurred on June 1, 2002 when UL-Lafayette defeated LSU, 5-1.
  • With Marist’s four-run first inning, LSU has now surrendered 10 runs in the first frame in its last three games. (4 vs. Miss. State 5/25, 2 vs. Tennessee 5/26).
  • With his 3-for-4 game, right fielder Nick Stavinoha extended his hitting streak to four games and finished a triple shy of the cycle. Stavinoha leads LSU with 30 multi-hit games, including nine three-hit contests this season.
  • Designated hitter Jordan Mayer’s two-run homer in the sixth was his fourth blast of the season and first since May 14 versus Tennessee.
  • Outfielder Ryan Patterson moved into a tie for fifth place on the LSU career hits list with 278 with his sixth-inning single. Patterson, a Brooks Wallace and Dick Howser National Player of the Year semifinalist, tied Tookie Johnson (1988-91).
  • Outfielder Quinn Stewart’s solo homer in the seventh was his third of the season and first since April 22 at Arkansas.
  • LSU’s scored six runs in the seventh — its biggest output in an NCAA Tournament game since posting an 11-run sixth in the NCAA Super Regional game versus Baylor on June 8.

LSU QUOTES
Head Coach Smoke Laval
” It looks like the offense won the game, but I want to tell you that Chris Jackson made two great plays that could have changed the momentum. We turned two double plays — (Michael) Hollander started two great plays — to keep us in the game and take the momentum away from them a little bit. It gave us that little bit of a kick start. Once the big guy (Jordan Mayer) got one up, it kind of ignited us and then we got the bats going and started swinging confidently after that.”

DH Jordan Mayer
On his home run…
“Basically what happened was before that particular at bat Smoke walked up to me and took me aside and told me to calm down and relax and get my best swings off. Obviously, it turned out to be a home run, which is a great thing. I’m very pleased with that.”

RF Nick Stavinoha
On his home run…
“The home run came on a fastball up and in. I’m not sure if that was the spot he was trying to hit, but it rode in pretty good. I’ve been working on bat speed for a while now and just tried to get my best swing off. I was able to do it and get on top of that ball enough. “

3B Chris Jackson
“All I was trying to do was go out there and get my best swing off at the plate. I tried to hit the ball hard on the ground and line drives. The play in the seventh I saw it going up and I just ran after it.”

MARIST QUOTES

Head Coach Joe Raccuia
Opening statement…
“We had a 4-2 lead early in the game and obviously had the opportunity to expand the lead, but we didn’t. In the sixth inning, we lost control of that baseball game. We gave up two solo home runs, and like I told my team in the seventh inning, you have the back end of the game to go and have the opportunity to beat the No. 1 team with nine outs to go on each side. We obviously didn’t pitch well down the stretch, and that’s what got us. We just made some terrible pitches.”

P Chris Tracz
On his performance on the mound…
“Overall it was a battle the whole day from the first batter on. With their lineup, you can’t make mistakes, and we made a couple. I made a couple early and then that one that tied the game up was just a curve ball left up. Coming into the game we had to limit our mistakes, I had to limit my mistakes. We made too many, a lot more than we could afford in this game. They’re a good team and they showed it.”

OF Kevin Grauer
On his three-hit performance…
“Before the game our coaching staff told us that they didn’t want us to take any fastballs, so I just went in with the approach that any fastball I saw that was near the zone I was going to swing at. They gave some good pitches to hit today and I took some good swings.”