St. Louis Prepares For Gamecocks

COLUMBIA (WOLO) — St. Louis spoke Thursday about their 2013 NCAA Regional match-up with South Carolina Thursday at Carolina Stadium. The Billikens will face the Gamecocks on Friday at 7 p.m. Saint Louis Head Coach Darin Hendrickson: – Hendrickson opened Thursday’s press conference joking, “Please don’t ask me who is going to win the South Carolina-Clemson game.” – “We are excited to be here. I don’t think we’re awestruck, I think we are ready to roll. I am proud of my team and I know we deserve to be here. This is a great place to play a regional.” – “I remember watching them (South Carolina) and coach Tanner and I think watching their toughness down to the last out is amazing. To me, they just epitomize the word tough. That’s the way I would describe this group. They’ve done it right, they’ve been consistent. I have respect for them personally, but I have to keep my respect but help my team not be in awe.” – “I’d like to break USC’s streak. They got great numbers, great fans, and this is a great baseball city. We are very aware of the numbers. I try to take my team every year to an SEC situation. It is a situation we can never prepare for. Our kids are ready. Our energy-level will rise playing in this kind of situation.” St. Louis Players: “It’s a great opportunity to play here in a regional. All of us come from small schools, so we are looking forward to getting the exposure. We’d like to be the team who breaks the streak. We’d like to get the spotlight.” – OF Alex Kelly “It doesn’t matter that we are being overshadowed by the Clemson-South Carolina rivalry. Either way we are going to go out there and bring it. It really doesn’t matter if the attention is on us or not.” – C/3B Grant Nelson “Yeah, our average crowd is 137 people. It is what it is. We can’t worry about what’s outside the lines once we start playing.” – OF Alex Kelly “Playing in front of small crowds makes us appreciate stages like this. We’ve experienced some rough times in terms of stadium fans. We we’re able to play through that. It might actually be harder to play through a small amount of fans compared to a large amount of fans. We are excited to play in front of a large crowd and get the adrenaline going. It’s going to be different.” – C/3B Grant Nelson DATES/TIMES/FORMAT Friday, May 31 Game 1 – No. 2 Clemson vs. No. 3 Liberty – 1 p.m. (ESPN3) Game 2 – No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 4 Saint Louis – 7 p.m. (ESPN2/ESPN3) Saturday, June 1 Game 3 – Loser of Game 1 vs. Loser of Game 2 – 2 p.m. (ESPNU/ESPN3) Game 4 – Winner of Game 1 vs. Winner of Game 2 – 8 p.m. (ESPNU/ESPN3) Sunday, June 2 Game 5 – Winner of Game 3 vs. Loser of Game 4 – 1 p.m. (ESPNU/ESPN3) Game 6 – Winner of Game 5 vs. Winner of Game 4 – 7 p.m. (ESPNU/ESPN3) Monday, June 3 Game 7 – If Necessary – 7 p.m. (ESPNU/ESPN3)