University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
UCLA 15, Kent State 1 - Postgame Quotes
June 05, 2010 | Baseball
June 4, 2010
UCLA head coach John Savage
opening statement
"I thought it was a great way to start the weekend. Our guys really seemed to be focused. Gerrit [Cole] was outstanding. He threw strikes from the first pitch. He really put in a good day's work. I think he threw 79 pitches in five innings. Offensively we wore them down, which was big. It was a good way to start the tournament."
on his decision to start Gerrit Cole
"We have a ton of respect for Kent State. Coach [Scott] Stricklin and his staff, they won 39 games in the MAC Conference. They are as good a No. 4 as there is out there. We've been successful all season long with Gerrit going on Friday. He wanted the baseball. We thought about it but not for very long. We knew that he was our leader and we knew that we needed to establish this tournament on Friday night. Gerrit was the best guy for that so we went with the guy who got us here.
on facing LSU on Saturday night
"Well they are the defending national champions. It's going to be a good matchup. (Trevor) Bauer has been very good for us on Saturdays. We know they have an outstanding pitcher going tomorrow as well. That was a great win for them today. So it should be a very good matchup."
UCLA starting pitcher Gerrit Cole
I think the first inning kind of set the tone for the whole game. I thought it was pretty crucial to come out of that inning with a zero. I just kind of pound the zone and attack the guys and I had confidence we would get out of that. There really wasn't a doubt in my mind.
Kent State head coach Scott Stricklin
opening statement
"Well, put simply it was starting pitching. Gerrit Cole was obviously very good. Robert Sabo did not have a good start. That was the difference in the game and the game was over very early."
on Kent State starting pitcher Robert Sabo
"Robert has been up and down all year. If you look back at his starts they are either really good or what you saw tonight. We were hoping the other Robert Sabo would show up."
on what he told the team after the game
"That's not the way that I want people to think about our team. We are a better team than that. We played very poorly. The ball went up in the air and we didn't catch it. We had a ground ball to shortstop that we made a misplay on and extended an inning. So we had chances to get out of it early and quite frankly it should have been three or four to nothing. We gave them extra outs and they took advantage of it and did a great job."
on UCLA's Gerrit Cole
"When you have a guy like Cole on the mound, you have to get to him early. If he settles in he's going to be really, really good. He pitched very well."
