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May 30, 2009

Army
Head Coach Joe Sottolano
Opening statement: First, I'd like to congratulate Texas State on an outstanding season. No question, they are a quality ball club. A lot of people were talking about them being a No. 1 seed, and I can see why. They're very well-coached and very disciplined. I'm glad, obviously, but I don't think either team was overly pleased with the way they played. But both teams stuck in there and really competed. Pitchers, Ben [Koenigsfeld] on this side and their pitcher, kept the teams close. We were fortunate enough to really come through at the end and show a lot of heart and grit, which I'm really proud of, and come away with a victory.

On coming back to win the game: I think anyone who's any type of competitor never likes things to end unless it's favorable. We talk about that all the time. Unfortunately, life doesn't always give you a second chance. I don't believe it's a second chance today, but it's tough to live with a level of success that you don't really want to achieve. The only way not to is to get right back on the horse and get after it. That's something we sort of communicate and talk about each and every day. The club has really done a terrific job of doing that throughout the course of the year. There's been several times in conference where we lost a doubleheader the first day and came back and swept the next day. That shows integrity and shows a little about the character of the people at West Point.

Sophomore RHP Ben Koenigsfeld
On his performance today: I wouldn't say it was a bad strike zone at all. I was just having a little trouble commanding it.

On the team's performance: We were still in a position where we were close. With the way our offense has been all year, although we've been struggling a little this weekend, I just knew they were going to bust open at some point. I'd just say knowing what we're capable of makes you realize that might not be as big of a deal when it's all said and done.

Sophomore DH Joey Henshaw
On coming back today to win over Texas State: The team came in with a lot of confidence today. In the later innings there, we played with a lot of confidence and battled up there at the plate. That's what I believe led to our success.

On Army's five-run eighth inning: Coach was actually talking before that inning about the difference between a win and a loss is a lot of times the amount of heart a team has. I believe all our batters went up, just scrapping and battling and finding any way to get on base. By the time I got up, I think I got down to two strikes and my approach was to get on base any way I could.

Texas State
Head Coach Ty Harrington
Opening statement: I thought Army pitched well. Our offense has been the key to what we've done all year long and being able to separate ourselves from opponents in these games. We weren't able to separate ourselves yesterday or today. I think a little bit of it goes to the pitching performance of the guys Army put out there. I thought Army was a tremendously well-coached team.

On Texas State's season: What these guys did for the university was tremendous and they deserve applause. We built them a new stadium. We set a record for wins, and we were a two seed for a regional, which I still think we deserved. A lot of tremendous things helped us get to this point and really and truly to the credit of the players, it was about them and what they were capable and able and did as a team this year. I'm proud and pleased. I'm disappointed for two reasons. I'm disappointed for them that the season is over, because they wanted to keep winning. They really felt like they could get to the championship game this morning when they woke up. And selfishly speaking, I'm disappointed because I don't get to coach them again this year.

On learning from this experience: We have some young guys that will be ready for it. What we will take out of the weekend is a comfort level of participating in tournaments like this. You have to get to this point to experience it. You have to execute at this level. We weren't able to execute late in both games. In the future, we'll work and I'll do a better job of preparing them for the moment. We'll take some things and information out of this. You're not very smart if you let it beat you twice, so we'll take some information out of this and make some changes and some additions that will help us.

On where they go from here: We'll go home and the staff and I will sit down and talk about what we need to do to be prepared. Experience is valuable. A lot of times you watch guys with senior teams, and they win championships with older teams. Experience comes into play. So now that we've gotten into this tournament, hopefully our experience will help us in the future.

1B Paul Goldschmidt
On their season: It was a fun year. We did some good things. We set a lot of records. Obviously this weekend was disappointing. Like Coach Harrington said, we have a lot of young guys coming back who have done some great things for us, so hopefully we can move forward.

On his teammates: I'm proud of the job the guys have done this year. It didn't work out for us this weekend. We lost some tough games, but overall for the year, we couldn't ask for anything better.

On today's loss: It was tough, but I think we didn't play well in either of these games. We didn't put the game away when we were ahead like we were able to do this season. We missed some opportunities throughout the game. I don't think we hit as well as we should have. We really didn't deserve to win either of these games, because we didn't play how we have the entire season.

RF Spencer Dennis
On the Bobcats' season: Bringing in a new stadium was a big deal for us. We broke a lot of records and that was fun. It was really fun playing with these guys.