2006 NCAA Super Regional: Game 2 Notes and Quotes
6/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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| 2006 NCAA Tuscaloosa Super Regional |
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University of Alabama
Head Coach Jim Wells
"I was real proud of my team, the way we fought back there. I feel badly because I thought I mis-managed the game late. I should have done an inside move again. I thought the guy was going to bunt and we had called a breaking ball and he hit one out. But, the guys, what a great comeback and then that happens. You've got a guy 0-2 and then you don't get him and then Flack comes up and you miss with the pitch and he hits it. But I told the club, I said I don't know if I've had a better experience with a group ever. So it's been incredible. It was tough tonight. It should have been a different ending if I'd have done a better job at the end.
#26 Matt Downs, 3rd Baseman:
On emotions throughout the game: "It was a rollercoaster. I guess everybody saw it. They went up big. Then when we went up our emotions got high and then coming back up again and the emotions let down. You've got to stay level the whole time. You can't get too high, can't get too low. It was a classic example tonight. We just got too high and it fell out for us."
# 2 Emeel Salem, Centerfielder:
On North Carolina's game-winning homerun: "That guy swung the bat well all night. You have to give him credit. It was a good pitch on the outer half of the plate, maybe even off the plate, and he just stayed with it and did exactly what you're supposed to do with it."
"Me, personally, they completely shut me down this weekend and that's part of the reason why we lost and I take a lot of this on me. I left guys on base and really wasn't very productive this weekend and it showed."
On the season: "I wouldn't trade it with anybody. We won the SEC. You couldn't ask for anything bigger your senior season than to win the SEC and get a ring out of it and a trophy. I wouldn't trade anybody in the nation right now."
# 33 Tommy Hunter, Pitcher:
On three-run homerun against him on the mound: "It was nothing different than any other game. I was throwing inside at will. So, I mean, that was the big thing about tonight. There are not a lot of guys who are able to throw in and I was busting them in pretty consistently and then of course, you leave a ball up and over the middle and it's going to go over the trees. So, it was disappointing, very disappointing. But it happens in baseball. It's something that you've got to live with but it's hard to."
On if he talked his way into an extra inning: "No. To be honest with you, I don't even remember. It wasn't anything about me coming out. I guess they thought I could do it. A mistake, and there goes the ball."
Alabama Notes:
• Alabama (44-21) concludes its season after back-to-back losses to No. 5 North Carolina in 2006 NCAA Tuscaloosa Super Regional. UNC won 11-5 on Friday night and 8-7 in dramatic fashion on Saturday. UNC's Chad Flack hit a game-winning, two-run home run in the ninth inning to give the Tar Heels the dramatic win. The two teams combined for three home runs and nine RBI in final three at-bats to close out an exciting Super Regional in Tuscaloosa.
• Flack also hit a three-run home run off UA starter Tommy Hunter (Indianapolis, Ind.) in the bottom of the eighth inning to give UNC a 5-4 lead, its first lead of the game. Flack was 3-for-5 with two home runs and five RBI in the win over Alabama. He also tripled and scored in the fourth inning as UNC cut the Bama lead to 3-2. He extended his hitting streak to 13 games.
• Freshman DH Alex Avila (Hialeah, Fla.) gave the Crimson Tide a 7-6 lead with his three-run opposite field home run in the ninth inning off UNC closer Andrew Carnigan. Avila was 2-for-28 in his last 11 games, including Saturday, before his first career post-season home run and RBI.
• The Crimson Tide knocked out UNC starter Daniel Bard in the third inning on Saturday night. It was Bard's shortest outing of the 2006 season and second shortest outing of his Carolina career. Bard, the 26th pick of the 2006 MLB Draft by the Boston Red Sox, allowed two runs and three hits in two-plus innings, with two walks and three hit batters.
• Hunter set the single-season freshman record for innings pitched on Saturday against UNC. Hunter threw seven innings and finished the year with 117 1/3 innings. The previous record was 112 1/3 innings by Wade LeBlanc in 2004.
• Senior 3B Matt Downs (Centreville) stroked his seventh home run of the season with two outs in the fourth inning to give Alabama a 3-1 lead. It was Downs' first career post-season home run for the Tide.
• The paid attendance for Saturday's Super Regional game was 5,420. The two-day total is 10,660, an average of 5,330 per game.
• Alabama played 22 one-run games this season and compiled a 12-9 record in those 21 games.
• The Crimson Tide stranded nine base runners in the loss to UNC, including the bases loaded in the third inning. In addition, Alabama had five runners thrown out a second base, third base and home during the course of the game.
• Alabama fell to 2-2 all-time in Super Regional play. The Crimson Tide swept LSU in a best-of-three series to advance to the CWS in 1999. Alabama was swept in the best-of-three series this weekend by North Carolina.
• Alabama went 31-9 at home this season and lost its first (Winthrop) and last series (North Carolina) of the year.
University of North Carolina
Head Coach Mike Fox
"I have felt like there was something special about this group all year long. Chad Flack is about as clutch of a player as I have ever coached. I've never seen anything like that."
"There is a huge wave of emotions. I feel for Alabama because I've been in their shoes before. It's a tough deal when you get to this point of the year. I'm so elated for our players who have given their heart and soul all year. We've been rewarded for a lot of hard work."
On his team's attitude following Avila's 9th inning home run: "This is why people love the game of baseball; it isn't over until the other team gets you out 27 times. Our motto all year long has been Â`Nothing will break our spirit'. We've said that a number of times this year and if that doesn't break it then nothing will."
#34 Chad Flack
"I'm just glad I could do it for our coaches because they deserve it. The whole team deserves it, especially our seniors. I can't think of anything better to get them to Omaha."
"I was just thinking about making good contact, getting a hit and keeping the inning going. I ended up getting a better piece of the ball than I thought I would."
"I turned to Coach Forbes right before my at bat and told him that we weren't losing this game. We knew, even after (Alabama) hit the home run, that we weren't going to lose and that we were going to battle until the end."
UNC Notes:
• The Tar Heels captured their first-ever Super Regional title and advanced to the program's fifth College World Series with the 8-7 win Saturday against Alabama. Carolina will be making its first trip to Omaha since 1989 and its first under Mike Fox.
• The win was UNC's 50th of the season, which is the second-most in program history. The Tar Heels won 51 games in 1990.
• Chad Flack's go-ahead home run in the eighth inning and game-winning homer in the ninth were his 100th and 101st hits of the season, which is the third-most in UNC history. Flack, who also tripled, extended his current hitting streak to 13 games, which matches his career high set earlier this season, and drove in a run for the 11th game in a row. Flack now has a career-best 67 RBI on the year to go along with 13 home runs, which shares the team lead. Saturday marked his second multi-home run game of the season.
• Josh Horton had one hit on the night and now has 99 on the season. Only three other Tar Heels have surpassed the century mark, including Flack, and no two UNC players have notched 100-plus hits in the same season.
• Reliever Matt Danford came on in the third and allowed two runs on just one hit over four innings to match a season-long outing (at Georgia Tech March 25).
• Luke Putkonen made his first career relief appearance (a scoreless eighth) after 12 midweek starts during the regular season. Saturday's outing was his first work since a May 16 win over UNC Greensboro.
• Carolina failed to score at least 11 runs for the first time in the NCAA tournament Saturday, snapping a run of four straight games. The Tar Heels did extend their streak of 10-hit games to 10 Saturday. UNC has 10 or more hits in all five NCAA tournament games.
• Daniel Bard's two-plus innings Saturday marked his shortest outing of the season and the second-shortest of his career. He went just 1.2 innings against Miami April 16, 2005. Bard gave up two runs on three hits, two walks and hit three batters against Alabama.
• Reid Fronk, who came off the bench Friday and walked and was hit by a pitch, reached base in his first four trips to the plate in the Super Regional before a fifth-inning fly out. He singled in the first and doubled home UNC's first run in the third Saturday. Fronk was hit by a pitch for the 21st time of the season to lead off the eighth and drew a one-out walk in the ninth to start the game-winning rally.
• Jay Cox had two more hits Saturday and now is now 12-for-22 in the postseason.
