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NCAA Baseball - Los Angeles Regional
June 5, 2011 - UCLA 4, San Francisco 1
Post-Game Quotes - Game Five

UCLA Head Coach John Savage:
"That was a somewhat typical game for us. We just can't get away from the opponent. They had chances again like yesterday. It seems like it's like pulling teeth for us at times to score runs, but I thought we had a good approach, and we had people in position again. I thought our pitching was outstanding. Plutko has been the best freshman in the country all year. If you look at his pure numbers, you have to put him right up there with other people. I'm proud of how the team battled back from Friday to get in a position to play tonight. Now we've got to put this one behind us and play a very good Irvine team at 6.

(on how important strong starting pitching is): "It's critical. We don't score on Fri., we score three yesterday, four today. Like Eric Karros would say, you're only as good as your starting pitcher. We don't want to say that's completely all we have. We don't feel that way, but there's a lot of truth to that. You've got to have good starting pitching in a regional or you're going to go home quickly."

"You don't have much flexibility when you lose the first game. To have Trevor do what he does Saturday and Adam does what he does in the first game (today), you have to tip your hat to them. They put our team in position. That's all you can do from a starting pitcher's perspective. I'm proud of our entire team but certainly Adam today."

(on saving guys): "It's all or nothing, double elimination. When you lose the first game, you can't leave anything in the bullpen. That's just the way it is. You're saving this, saving that, and you're going to find yourself out of the tournament. I'm just glad we could get to two teams standing after the loss Friday."

UCLA Pitcher Adam Plutko:
(on nerves): "I really wasn't that nervous. I've pitched a lot of big games before. This was my first playoff game in college, but I threw in the playoffs in high school. I used that past experience I had to just take it one pitch at a time and not worry about winning the game but about winning each pitch I threw."

San Francisco Head Coach Nino Giarratano
"It's always tough when you lose, but UCLA played great today. When you face Gerrit Cole and then you face the best freshman in the country (Plutko) at this point, it's tough for us. We pitched well enough in the entire tournament to have a chance. We didn't play defense, which is really uncharacteristic of our club, and that's how the game ended up being 4-1. I thought it should have been a 2-1 or 1-1 game going into the ninth. I'm proud of the way we pitched and of the way we battled back every day and how we were able to keep the games manageable. We had a chance to win all three days."

(on Plutko): He's a 3 pitch mix. He was able to throw the fastball and elevate it and keep us from getting to middle of it. We had a lot of fly balls today. He was able to move the fastball side-to-side, which gave us fits. He didn't leave many pitches in middle. He was able to throw his breaking ball two different ways. And he was able to use his changeup. I don't care what level you're at - if the guy's a three-pitch mix, it's going to be a tough day, and it was for us until he finally tired out in the (eighth)."

(on ninth inning rally): "I like how we brought the tying run to the plate. In college baseball it seems like the tying run always comes to the plate in the ninth, and we had a guy who could jolt the ball out of the ballpark (Matt Chavez). He got a pitch there but just froze. He got a breaking ball but just didn't pull the trigger. The circumstances were a tough one for him. But I thought last night we had a chance to win the ball game, and today we had a chance to tie the ball game in the ninth, so I'm really proud of my kids."

(on next season): "We lose a lot of pitching and a lot of position players - we lose nine seniors off this club. This was the year for us to be successfull. But we've got a good group coming back. We're pretty deep 1-10, and we saw that today. I thought Jordan (Remer) pitched great today. I like the chances of this club with the kids coming in and the experience we were able to gain here today. I think it's going to help us be successful."

San Francisco Pitcher Jordan Remer
(on his experience today): "Our pitching coach instilled in us to make everything the same. It doesn't matter if it's a Regional or if it's against the No. 1 or the 200th-ranked team in the country. He does a good job helping us stay calm in any situation. It felt the same as if it were a regular-season game. It still hasn't really hit that we were in a Regional yet. It will be something to look back on and appreciate. We did a good job as a team of staying in the moment and just helping each other out. We were just out there to play baseball."