University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Baseball Pre-Tournament Quotes from Head Coach John Anderson
6/3/2004 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
- Click Here For Golden Gopher Baseball Notes
Minnesota has advanced to an NCAA Regional for the sixth time in seven seasons. The third-seeded Golden Gophers (38-21) will head to Fullerton, Calif. for the NCAA Regionals where it will play second-seeded host Cal State Fullerton (36-20) in the second game on Friday, June 4 at 9 p.m. (CT). First seeded Arizona State (40-16) will take on Pepperdine (28-30) in the first game at 5 p.m. (CT). There will be three games on Saturday, June 5 starting with the loser's bracket game at 1 p.m. (CT), the winners bracket game at 5 p.m. (CT) and the third game at 9 p.m. (CT). On Sunday, June 6 there will be games at 3 p.m. (CT) and 7 p.m. (CT).
Here are some quotes from Minnesota Head Coach John Anderson heading into the NCAA Regional matchup with Cal State Fullerton on Friday, June 4 at 9 p.m. (CT):
(On winning both the regular season and Big Ten titles in the same season) "Winning both the regular season title and the tournament title is extremely difficult to do in our conference. When our team sat down in the preseason and identified our goals at the beginning of the season we pointed to winning each of those titles as a goal. I think we learned some lessons along with the way, having hosted the conference tournament the past two years, which helped us come away with both titles."
(On playing in the Cal State Fullerton Regional) "This is a very good regional. We have tremendous respect for the other three programs here. All four programs in this regional have won national titles in their program's history and I am not sure there are to many other regionals where you could find that."
(On playing Cal State Fullerton for a fourth time this year) "It helps to have played them before from a scouting respect. Both of our teams have seen each other player and we know a fair amount about each other. I think it will pretty much all come down to executes better tomorrow in our game against Cal State Fullerton. We are familiar with their team and the facilities here so that part is a plus as well."
(On starter Glen Perkins throughout the season) "Glen (Perkins) has done a good job both years he has been here at getting better as the year progresses. Cal State Fullerton did a good job against him the first time we played out here in March. However, Glen (Perkins) has continued to get better as the season has progressed and is a better pitcher at this point in the season. He has been very consistent in giving us a quality outings and has gotten better and better every time he has taken the mound this year."
(On senior Sam Steidl) "Sam is the best player on the team and he is the pulse of our squad. He makes me look better as a coach every time he takes the field."
