June 5, 2010

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Illinois State University vs. Saint Louis University
NCAA Regional
Jim Patterson Stadium
Louisville, Ky.
June 5, 2010

Saint Louis Head Coach Darin Hendrickson

(Opening Statement) "I want thank the University of Louisville for having us in. We are not for moral victories so that is not what this speech is about. We got the most out of guys that we could. We had a ton of young pitchers there at the end that pitched in this game. Illinois State put five home runs on us. It is hard to defend that. It kind of took the wind out of our sails a little bit. I thought [Kevin] Tokarski's hit was the game to be honest. It was 2-2 after we had just hit their guy around in the first inning and Danny's ball was unbelievably crushed, hits the guy in the foot and goes to the shortstop or that inning goes on for who knows how long. That was a huge play in the game. To me, there were three key components and that was one of them. Another was the 2-2 breaking ball that was supposed to be down and away. Overall, the body of work is what I am most proud about our team. [They] made a crash landing into a great run."

(on J.D. Dunn) "He is everything that I am trying to bring to Saint Louis, culture-wise, attitude-wise, work-ethic wise. He would be the first to admit he has come a long way, certainly got the most out of his ability. I think in NCAA sports that is all you can ask out of a kid. J.D. embodied our team, he was our leader. I never had a better defensive center fielder in my entire career. I have coached some All-Americans and some drafts picks. Nobody goes and gets the ball like him. I think his work ethnic rubbed off on some guys. We are just a young team and I guess we were not supposed to make it and we did. I think is just the feather in the cap of a guy like J.D. who has seen this program go from 16 wins his first year, to 24, to 30 and now to 33. He just capped off a nice career. You wish you had a lot of J.D's through your years and when you do, you do not take him for granted."

(on giving up five home runs) "You are always surprised when you give up five home runs. The way Patterson (Stadium) is playing and the wind, considering we rolled out four freshmen, I guess I should not be surprised. When you look at it all, it is hard to win when you give up five homeruns. How many games have you seen when team scores more in one inning than you do all game. It is just one of those games, but like I said a crash landing into a really good run here. When they get five home runs unless there are solo shots you are probably not going to be on the right end of that."

Saint Louis CF J.D. Dunn

(On reaching regionals as a senior) "It's been a great experience. You fight four years then you finally get to make it. That's what you work hard for in the fall and the winter. You hope to make it every year, but making it in the last year was a pleasure. Like he (Coach Hendrickson) said we're not for moral victories. It would have been a lot better to win at least one or a couple, but it's been great."

(On how J.D. Learnard was able to hold them down) "I didn't know his name was J.D. I think our approach was not all the way there. Consistently it wasn't. We had a couple of bad breaks. We hit some balls hard. I think overall, during the span of the game, we didn't capitalize on some of the mistakes he made. That kind of hurt us."