June 21, 2007

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2007 NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES
Game 13 Quotes: Rice vs. North Carolina
Rosenblatt Stadium, Omaha, Neb.
Thursday, June 21, 2007

Rice Head Coach Wayne Graham
(opening statement): "I think the number one thing is North Carolina is a fantastic team. I'm as proud as I can be of this team and what they have accomplished this season. It's been a great season and we have a lot to look forward to next year."

(about the disappointment of losing): "It's always disappointing when you lose. It's like I told the kids outside, "don't worry they won't fire me."

(about the called strike on Joe Savery in the seventh inning): "I thought the pitcher was throwing into Joe's power. I was hoping that he would throw one thigh-high so Joe could get one over the fence. I was disappointed with that situation."

Rice 1B Joe Savery
(about striking out in his last collegiate at-bat): "It is disappointing to go out like that but I'm not going to sum up my college career by that one at-bat. That's a crime to do that. I feel like we had one of the toughest roads to get here (Omaha). I'm not going to look at my career and just think about how my last plate appearance was a strikeout with runners on second and third."

(about Rice's offensive slump): "No teams in college baseball score 15 runs each time. I felt like today we had our pitches to hit but we just didn't hit them."

Rice P Matt Langwell
(about his performance on the mound): "The first inning I had good stuff. I started leaving balls up. I was trying to keep them low but they were just staying up on me."

North Carolina Head Coach Mike Fox
(opening statement): "I don't know where to begin. I think we're exhausted and we're elated. To say we'll be playing for the national championship is surreal. This team has done it all year long. It doesn't surprise me we were able to come back and win three games. I'm not sure where the home runs came from tonight. We saved them all up. We're thrilled and happy to be playing for the national title."

(about playing Oregon State again): "I'm just glad we're playing. I'm sure everyone else is thrilled that the matchup is the same as last year. We just want to take a deep breath. We're happy to still be playing."

(about pitching matchup for Saturday): "If we didn't use him (Alex White) today and we were fortunate enough to win, we thought we would use him."

North Carolina 1B Dustin Ackley
(about offense): "We haven't been doing things any differently. Everyone is clicking at the same time."

North Carolina P Andrew Carignan
(about coming through bracket with a loss to get to MCWS Finals): "Last year we did win three in a row, and it didn't go so well for us. This year it is the other way around, as we lost a game and came back. Hope it goes better for us this way."

North Carolina P Adam Warren
(about game plan for tonight's game): "Our game plan was to let our defense do the work. They've been great all year. We got a lot of ground balls and our defense came though."