Steve Jaksa Quotations

When he is swinging the ball well, we are a much better team. His approach at the plate has been really good and that's the key to being a quality hitter.

We won the first two in this series, so now we want to get greedy and get the sweep.

Since we are playing three conference games a weekend and some mid-week games, we have to have the pitching depth we do. It's nice to have because you know when someone gets tired you'll have someone else to come in and always make something happen.

Batting depth is very important in a game. Sometimes a few guys won't hit well at the top, but a few others in the middle or bottom will, and it really helps when that happens.

He has a pretty clear-cut mental approach in terms of attacking the pitch. We've told him, 'Hey, they're going to try to extend the strike zone and get you out on off-speed pitches.' He's done a fine job with that.

There is never any way of knowing what any game is going to be like. We just knew that both teams would show up and there would be a game today. Beyond that, nothing is ever a given when it comes to baseball.

We've been throwing really well. After a weekend of great pitching you couldn't expect it again, but it happened. The bottom line is, the better the pitching, the lower the other team's score is going to be.

Josh just made one bad pitch and he paid for it. He pitched really well until that one pitch.

Our goal every season is to win the regular season title and then once we get that part done, we want to win the conference tournament and make a good showing there. We have made steps in that direction the last two years - I don't know if this is a natural progression but I think we should be in the mix.

I still like our staff. You have to tip your cap to Kent State they hit the ball well.

That would be nice. Obviously that would be tough to do but hopefully someone can step up like J.T. did this weekend.

I was really happy with how our bullpen performed this weekend. We think there might be another guy somewhere in the dugout that can help us out also - we just need to find him. We are going to work some different combinations this week to try and work that out.

We played well and I liked our effort. Three out of the four games we were in the game.

Those are the things we need in mid-week games. He put a lot of goose eggs up, he threw strikes and his pitch count was low. It ends up working out pretty good for us.

We probably walked a few more guys than we wanted to. Overall, we needed a better defense.

With as windy as it was we knew it was going to be a small ball game to an extent. So we went out there and played accordingly.

We got a lot of big hits today. They just came at the right time and J.T.'s was obviously a big hit. He's a senior and someone that we count on to come through for us.

We kind of started a little slower today. We were getting hits but we just couldn't score any runs.

You get momentum from pitching and defense. Our whole idea was to build depth in that pitching staff.

Ben had a few first good innings and then struggled just a little more than we would have liked. But then the next few guys did well and pitched good innings.

It was uncharacteristic of us. We had a couple of unusual errors, but we still made them. If you would have told me we'd have 10 walks and six errors and still be in the game, I would have been surprised.

It will be a good match-up for our pitchers. We're confident they are up to the task.

It's a great honor for any pitcher. He pitched well, but he's got to continue to pitch well.

It's nice to be home for awhile. Especially with Michigan coming here, it's going to be a big help.

The biggest thing is we got the win. No team in the Mid-American Conference is going to give up. When things got tough we played harder.

It's disappointing we couldn't get a few more hits and make a few more plays. If we could have just done a little more early in the game, who knows what would have happened.

I really just wanted everyone to get a chance to get to know one another before each season. It's been a neat experience because we have been able to have some former players back to speak and tell of the tradition here.

I really believe that is where you want to be. When you look year in and year out, you wouldn't want it any other way. I think this says a lot about our coaching staff and about our players.

I don't know if some of those home runs would have gone out on a normal day. But the guys saw some good pitches and the wind carried the ball well.