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June 3, 2010

Head coach Augie Garrido
Opening statement: I think that the tournament field is really an excellent one. Rider comes in after winning 10 straight, playing very well. They're led by a left-handed pitcher, Mike Thomas, and their closer is left handed as well and he does a real good job with it. Besides the pitching, they've played a pretty high level of defense. They field very well. They handle the ball, defensively. They're a team that depends on forming guys in the middle of their order. One particularly, that is 60 RBI and nine home runs. They just kind of grind it out. Typically, teams from that part of the country are very disciplined. They're well-coached and very respectful of the game itself because they come from the Yankees and the Red Sox and all the Major League Baseball and the true traditionalists. We saw that when we played St. John's a few years ago in the Rice Regional and they beat us the first time they played us. They played very well. I think we have one of the strongest tournament fields in the country. Louisiana comes in after having a great season. They're lightening fast on the bases and put a lot of things together. Their Friday night starter is as good as anyone in the country and better than most. He, too, brings a lot to it. Rice is always a highly-competitive, tournament-savvy team. We've played them three times. We can throw that out the window. This is going to be all new from this point forward. All three teams in this tournament are very capable of winning.

On starting Brandon Workman Friday night: I think that Brandon matches pretty well with this team. One of the things teams to do to him is run on him and it bothers him some. He does a good job of trying to hold that to a minimum. He's going to pitch in some important games. The first two are really important to win and of course you have to finish it off. Still, to go through the winner's bracket is a lot better road than trying to do it the other way. Brandon matches up better because they don't have the overall base running or they don't bunt as much as Louisiana does, for example. I think he's our best choice for this game.

On re-creating Texas' "magical" run last season: You don't manufacture that spiritual part. It's just that kind of chemistry that no one explains really well but it's real. It's our opportunity to get into that groove. What you see happen is you see the teams get better and better as they advance. They continue to gain confidence to a point where they're almost invincible. We did that to a point last year and fell short at the end. However, the best example of that is Fresno State. I watched the last three games and they had guys with broken fingers playing and hitting home runs and pitchers pitching on short-day's rest. They were terrific. I think it's one of the great things about players this age. Once they feel that and think that, their confidence raises to that level. The only way it can get there is by really getting into these tournaments.

Junior RHP Brandon Workman
On coming back after the Big 12 Championship:I feel that losing three games up there was kind of a good wake-up call for our team. It showed us that we can't just throw it out there and expect to win every game. Since we've been back, we've had a couple of good days of practice and really prepared ourselves to give our best effort this weekend.

On last year's success in the CWS: We worked really hard last year. We had a really good season and fell one game short. That's made us want to do a little bit extra and work a little bit more - stay after practice and do extra things, or work extra in the weight room to put ourselves in an even better position to be able to achieve our goals this season.

Junior C Cameron Rupp
On getting ready for the Regional: I think we struggled a little up in Oklahoma City. We didn't do a lot of little things right. Getting bunts downs and when we didn't get it down, we ended up hitting into a double play. When you do things like that, you're not going to win a whole lot of ball games. After a couple days of practice, we really worked on getting our bunts down, moving runners and making productive outs. Overall, that has raised our confidence again and getting us back to where we need to be.

On re-creating Texas' "magical" run last season: That stuff's not really predictable. You can't just pull it out of your bag of tricks. It always happens some way. We used it in the regional quite a few times against Boston College, against Army. In the Super Regional, we never really needed it. We went out there and we played our game, and ended up beating them. In the College World Series, that happened a lot of the time. That's just something you can't rely on. You can't expect it to happen. We have a really good ball club. We know how to play the game. We do a lot of little things right. That's what made us so good this year. As long as we continue to play our game, some magic will happen at some point. As long as we play our game, we'll be in good shape.