POST GAME QUOTES: Seton Hill vs. West Virginia State
Seton Hill pitcher Brian Warheit
Q. What worked for you tonight?
A. Getting the shutout means a lot to me. I had a rough outing the last time out in the WVIAC tournament. My key tonight was being able to command the fast ball inside and outside of the plate and mixing in a few off speed pitches. But really my fast ball was the key tonight.
Q. What does it mean to you and the team to earn your first NCAA tournament victory?
A. We have great confidence after winning the WVIAC and this just adds to it. We’re going to come out and give it our best tomorrow against West Chester and see what we can do.
Q. How much did Michael Leviseur’s fifth-inning grand slam help you relax?
A. That was a huge relief. It’s happened quite a few times for us this year where as pitchers, we keep the team in the game and then somebody hits a home run and breaks it open. His home run took a lot of pressure off of me. It’s a big difference pitching with a five-run lead instead of a one-run lead.
Seton Hill designated hitter Michael Leviseur
Q. Can you take me through the at-bat in which you hit the grand slam?
A. He threw me a pitch away and it was off-speed. So I figured he would try to get me to strike out looking. I figured he would throw me another fast ball so I sat on it and I got around on it. But I wasn’t worried because I figured if I didn’t get the job done in that situation there were plenty of others who would’ve delivered in that spot so there was no pressure on me at all. I was really relaxed at the plate. There are plenty of people behind me to get the job done if I can’t get it done.
Q. How confident are you going into the rest of the tournament?
A. We just have to keep winning. We have a good team, we’re hot right now and playing good baseball. We just have to keep it going.
Q. Talk about Brian’s effort tonight?
A. He’s done that all year and we expect that type of start out of him every time. He’s a great pitcher and he pitches to his strengths. He gets people out, the defense plays good behind him and we win a lot.
Q. What does winning your first NCAA tournament game in school history mean to you guys?
A. It’s a huge accomplishment for us with this being our second year of eligibility in the NCAA. They did it when they were NAIA and went to the World Series. It’s a big testament to our program and how quick we are going and hopefully we’ll keep building for years to come.
Seton Hill coach Marc Marizzaldi
Q. Opening statement on victory
A. Our starting pitching was very solid tonight. Actually, Brian didn’t have his best stuff but he located his fastball really well on both sides of the plate. To me, that was the entire key to the game. Just command of the fastball.
Q. Talk about Mike’s at bat in the fifth inning when he hit the grand slam?
A. He’s been swinging a hot bat in the second half of the season. He has the potential to hit the ball out of the park at any time. That’s kind of the type of team we’ve been all year. We’ve been getting really good pitching performances. We’re not exactly out-hitting teams but we’ve been getting timely hits. It seems like it’s a different guy every night and tonight it was Leviseur.
West Virginia State head coach Matt Bailey
Q. Can you describe for me today’s game, in detail what went down, what happened in today’s 6-0 loss?
A. Well we had a little bit too much Warheit. I don’t know, Warheit must be Warhog or Warhead,or something like that in German because he really pitched a good game; he was able to throw four pitches over the plate almost at any count during the game. He just made it tough on us, that’s all. I mean, what are you going to do? You can’t cover every part of the plate; up and down, down and in, down and away, up and away. I think our pitcher made four mistakes. We got the ball up one time to the catcher. We wanted to go down and in to the left-hander get the ball up and out of the play, but he hit it, and you know, that’s kind of the way baseball is.
Q. How will you bounce back?
A. Well we’ve bounced back all year. We’ve had good and bad games but we’ve bounced back by hitting the heck out of the ball and get a well-pitched game. I thought we had a well pitched game tonight except for the mistakes, but what we got to do is just take it at one pitch at a time and try to go after them like that. We’ve been successful in some tournaments during the season coming from the losers bracket. Our backs are against the wall right now, but now we find out what kind of guts we have and see how we do tomorrow.
West Virginia State shortstop Josh Bower
Q. Can you describe the game and the events that took place that led to the defeat in your opinion?
A. We got off to a decent start, even with the pitching. Then in the 5th inning they got a few runners on, and with the homer they hit we got down 5-0. We really couldn’t put anything together after that. It seemed like we always had at least one runner on in every inning but just couldn’t do anything with scoring. I think, with the double elimination tournament set up, we have the talent to come from the loser’s bracket and win the tournament.
Q. What do you guys have to do in order to be successful tomorrow?
A. We just need to come out and play ready and loose. We looked too tight right from the beginning but we shouldn’t have been. We played them (Seton Hill) twice last week, but tomorrow is a new day. I hope everyone comes out and plays their “A” game because I know with everybody on our team we have the talent to come back and put up a fight at least.
