May 30, 2008

Recap |  Box Score |  Notes |  Photo Gallery 1  |  Photo Gallery 2  |  Photo Gallery 3 

North Carolina Head Coach Mike Fox
Opening Statement:
"It was a good win for us, obviously good to win the first game in a regional. Offensively I thought we were pretty good tonight, we got some big hits by Dustin and Tim and they've done it for us all year. We got out to a big lead, and then the middle of our game wasn't the best. We were able to respond when they put four against us by scoring four in the bottom of the sixth and we were able to hold on. They kept playing and coming at us. It wasn't the cleanest win for us, but it was a win and that is all that matters this time of year and that's all we care about."

On the bullpen's performance:
"You can't really put your finger on one thing. It is different for each one of our pitchers and we used some guys tonight early. Matt threw 128 pitches against Wake Forest and we threw him on five days rest. So probably in hindsight I should have thrown him one more inning, but we were up 10-1. We trust our bullpen and it's just one of those things. Tyler is usually just a one-inning guy and we tried to stretch him to two innings. We used a lot of guys tonight, which is a good thing we got a lot of guys feet wet by pitching in a regional and we didn't tax any of them. Patrick has not pitched in a long time and we had to get him back out there in a game, when you don't have that rhythm sometimes it's tough. Coach Forbes that is his strength - is getting guys back up, so we'll be fine tomorrow.

Right fielder Tim Fedroff
On responding after Mount St. Marys scored four runs:
"Basically we were just trying to get something started. We know that the top to bottom of our lineup can produce and we tried to put pressure on them. I really just tried to not do too much. I tried to hit the ball where it was pitched and not press so much."

First baseman Dustin Ackley
On the production from the bottom of the lineup:
"It is definitely big for us. Any time you come up to the plate with runners on base you try to produce. Especially in a regional, you have to come up in clutch situations. We try to be as patient as we can. If we see a pitch we can hit we want to be aggressive though, but we don't want to get in a hole."

Mount St. Mary's Quotes

Coach Scott Thomson
"Well I think playing the No. 2 ranked team in the nation and being the second smallest Division 1 School in the United States, I think we put on a pretty good show tonight. Defensively, I think we let ourselves down a little bit, but 16-8 and being within 10 to 7 in the fifth inning, I think we gave the fans a little bit of surprise early in the game. But, I can't say enough about our players, they played right there with them. Not saying anything for North Carolina, but I think we're a ball club and we just enjoy the experience."

Zach Helman
On how much energy they have left
"It's not that hard to get up for playing Carolina. For us, it was playing the big dogs and it was pretty neat. So, we got plenty. I don't think that's an issue."

On looking forward to facing Elon tomorrow
"We are. It's good competition. What we play is good competition too, but coming down here, this is a great experience for us. It doesn't matter; here it's just fun to be in the arena. "

Kyle Kane
On scoring four runs in the sixth "We were fired up. We were just enjoying it and having a good time. I think a couple things that inning, they came back after we had that little run, that hit-and-run, a couple calls here and there; but that's baseball. It's just fun; we were fired up."