George Washington University Athletics
NCAA Baseball Regional Pre-Tournament Press Conference
5/30/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 30, 2002
NCAA Baseball Pre-Tournament Press Conference
May 30, 2002
Ernie Shore Field, Winston-Salem, NC
George Washington Head Coach Tom Walter:
[On earning the automatic bid]
"Obviously, it's great to be here. It's great for our program. We'd rather see someone other than Wake Forest and Kyle Sleeth on opening day because they're a top 4 or 5 team in the country for a reason."
[Describing the style of GW's team]
"We're very good offensively. We've got four guys in the middle of the order in Mike Bassett, Mike Krimmel, Jeff Fertitta and Jake Wald who have been swinging the bat real well and we've speed at the top and bottom of our order with Tony Brown, Travis Crowder and Tony Dokoupil so we're very balanced offensive. We don't play a small-ball type of game. We don't bunt guys over, we try to hit two-run homers and win games that way."
"The strength of our pitching staff in our bullpen. We've got two outstanding starters in Greg Conden and Jason Baker who we feel can match up with anyone in the country and we've got a freshman in Justin Orenduff and a senior lefthander Mike O'Connor out of the bullpen."
"We've got a very senior-laden club."
GW junior pitcher Greg Conden (Friday's starting pitcher):
"I try to pitch more to my strengths than to the hitter's weakness. I've gotten run support this year and I try to go for strikeouts when I need a strikeout and not try to strike everyone out, and then I let them get themselves out."
[On Wake Forest]:
"They've got some powerful hitters in their lineup and I'm going to try to make them hit my pitch and not make too many mistakes."
Walter on Greg Conden:
"My favorite thing about Greg is he has uncanny ability to get big outs when he needs to. Obviously you don't go 11-2 if you don't have the ability to do that. He does what we call damage control, he stays out of the big inning."
Senior outfielder Tony Brown:
"It's definitely exciting to go out your senior year and make a statement. We wanted to make a regional and leave a lasting impression. That's one thing he seniors want the most, at least say not just that we got here, but that we did something while we were here."
Walter on the game plan for Wake Forest:
"Everyone I've talked to has said the game is pretty much over if you're down in the eighth inning and we have that same strength with our club...if we have a lead with two innings to go, you're going to have to really work to tie the game or get the lead from us. It's important to keep it to a low-scoring game. I don't expect to go out against [Kyle] Sleeth and score eight or 10 runs so it's important to have the lead late in the game."
Walter on limiting the use of the bullpen:
"Unless you go 3-0, you're going to have to play 35 or 40 innings to win this so you want your best guys to give you six or seven innings and get you deep into the game."
GW Junior outfielder Tony Dokoupil:
"I feel like winning the conference championship got the monkey off our back. The last few years we've had talented clubs and this year we definitely have as much talent, or more and this was the year to do it."
