May 27, 2001

Recap?|? Box Score?|? Notes

UCSB Head Coach Bob Brontsema

On his team’s effort…
“That was a great college baseball game, plain and simple. Someone has to lose in those games. We battled our tails off, and we hit rockets all over the field today. I thought we played our heart out. It’s difficult for me, not because of the loss. We have a great bunch of young men, and they’ve busted their tails for me all season long. My disappointment is for them, not for me.”

On his team’s emotions following the heartbreaking loss…
“You can see it on their faces, I think. For some of those guys, it’s their last game. We had 10 guys who were seniors and played their last college baseball game.They’ve busted their tails, some of them for five years.”

On the game…
“This was probably our best game all year, except for giving up 20 hits. In terms of how we play and how agressive we are and how we swing the bat, this was more true to what the real UCSB team has been. That’s a real good Notre Dame squad out there. They weren’t number one in the nation for nothing. I thought our guys went toe-to-toe with them.”

On his senior leaders…
“This is a fantastic group of guys, on the field and off the field. I couldn’t be more proud of how these guys handled themselves. The players on this field brought this program back, and we’re going to miss them, definitely.”

UCSB pitcher James Garcia

On pitching on less than two days’ rest…
“I feel fine. I feel like I’ve got good stuff. My arm didn’t feel like it threw two days ago.”

UCSB sophomore outfielder Skip Schumaker

On waiting on third base as Dave Molidor was at the plate…
“It’s definitely difficult. We had our best hitter up, I thought. First we had Chad Peshke up and then Dave Molidor up. If we were going to go down, we were going to go down with our best guys.”

On stealing second in the 10th inning…
“He was ‘one, one thousand, pick’ or ‘one, one thousand, throw’ on every pitch. That was the first time he was set for a while, and I was taking off on ‘one, one thousand.’ So I took off, and he balked. So I thought we were fine, but then they didn’t call the balk. Fortunately, he threw it away.”

UCSB senior catcher Donnie Warrecker

On playing his last game as a Gaucho…
“It’s really hard right now. I’ve played this game since I was eight years old, and it could possibly be my last game ever. It’s the culmination of all the hard work I’ve done over the years. I’m thinking back to my first days in Little League, and I’ve made it this far. I feel so blessed that I played with this team. They are the best group of guys I’ve ever played with. It’s the best group of guys I’ve ever been involved with. The camaraderie and the friendships I’ve made have made this the best experience of my life.”

Notre Dame Coach Paul Mainieri

On his team performance…
“I don’t think I could in a million years be prouder of a group of kids. To watch what they did in the second game after losing such a heartbreaking opening game to just give it every ounce of energy they had. This game is amazingly simliar to the game we played in Starkville (Mississippi) last year in the championship game when we lost on a last-inning homerun. The difference is that tonight we hit the home run and we found a way to hang on. It was just an unbelieveable effort by our kids. You could never be prouder of a group of kids in your life.”

On the today’s emotional swing…
“I am kind of overwhelmed by the events of the day. It was an amazing series of events today. The bottom line was that we had our backs against the wall in the second game and the kids went out there and get 20 hits, piecemeal some pitching, with tremendous defense, clutch hitting and clutch pitching. The emotional swing was really something, but we live to play another day and we will take it.”

On the decision the pull starting sophomore pitcher J.P. Gagne…
“I thought that their team was on him pretty well. I thought that we needed to change things up a little bit there to change the momentum of the way they we swinging the bats. I thought Matt Buchmeier did that by coming in, doing a really good job for us, and stablizing the game. I felt also that if I got Gagne out of there quick enough, I would be able to bring him back tomorrow.”

On the performance by sophomore pitcher Matt Laird…
“When you get into these tournaments people have to do extraordinary things if you want to win…[Matt] Laird came in and faces the top of their order and gets through it, making cluch pitches when he needed to. Matt Laird is not a kid that lacks confidence in himself. He wants to be out there on the mound with the game on the line. He has pitched in a lot of tough situations this year, and more often then not he comes through for us. We had a lot of confidence that he would be able to go out there and do the job.”

On his opponent’s play…
“It was a great ball game. UC Santa Barbara, you got to give them so much credit too. They played a great ball game. I thought it was a tremendous college baseball game. It was a shame anybody had to lose that game.”

Notre Dame junior centerfielder Steve Stanley

On the occasion of his game-prolonging RBI…
“When I was a freshman in high school the exact same situation came up. One of my best friends was sitting outside and said, ‘Man, aren’t you nervous?’ I said, ‘I live for times like this.’ I wanted to be that person up there in that situation. I just hoped that Joe (Thaman) would either walk or get a hit to give me a chance. When I got the 2-and-1 count I smiled at the plate because I knew that I was going to do it.

On his team’s effort…
“This team has gone too far and it has been too much of an overall effort for this to end. I can’t take much more credit for that than to say that it fell for me. What can you say about our team that has just done such an incredible job?”

On his teammates Steve Sollmann and Kris Billmaier…
“They are some of the toughest kids I have ever played with, Steve [Sollmann] and Kris [Billmaier]. Those guys fuel your team. What can you say about those guys?”

Notre Dame sophomore right fielder Brian Stavisky

On his game-winning home run…
“It was a really good pitch, a slider, down and in. I had just been swinging the bat really well and luckily I stayed on it and just launched it out there. It felt really good.”