Tonight's starting pitchers...

Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Jeff Dietz gets the ball for Brown (27-19). Dietz is 9-3 with a 2.53 ERA in 89 innings. He has a really nice 81/18 K/BB ratio, and opposing hitters have batted only .225 against him. His last start was a three-hit shutout in the opener of the Ivy League Championship series.

Texas (44-15) will throw James Russell, their normal Friday night guy. Russell's 8-4 with a 3.97 ERA, but he's coming off a bad start -- 6 innings, 7 hits, 6 earned runs, and two homers allowed in a loss to A&M in the Big XII Tournament.

Quotes from the first game...
"I don't think we could have scripted that any better. Pretty good baseball game by our team. We pitched, hit, played wonderful defense. That's the good thing. The bad thing is that we're not going to sneak up on anyone now." -- UCI coach Dave Serrano

Did you do anything wrong?
"Well I woke up a little late this morning. I'll go back and look at the game a little later when we've settled down, but ah... No." -- Serrano

"No one probably knows this here, but in the fifth inning [Etheridge] had to change his uniform pants because he had a blood blister on his finger. His mechanics weren't great today and I think Wes would be the first to admit it. Probably be ridiculous for me to say, he just threw an eight-inning shutout in the first game of the regionals, but he wasn't as good as he could have been. Once he got the blood blister, I think it took his focus away from his mechanics and to thinking about that finger, and I honestly think after the blister came he pitched better." -- Serrano

"I think I got [the blister] in the fourth inning, and it started to bleed. It hurt a little bit, but I think it helped me out because I wasn't thinking about anything but pitching. I felt it and it hurt, but for some reason the ball was going over the plate and they were swinging and missing and that's the goal." -- Wes Etheridge

"This game was no different than any of the other 60 games. I just took a deep breath and stayed with my routine and everything cleared when that happened." -- freshman Jeff Cusick

"[Etheridge] exploited our weaknesses. He's a sinkerball kind of guy and we just did not seem to make any adjustments." -- Wake Forest coach Rick Rembielak

On Irvine:
"You can see there is a game plan on the bases and everybody is expected to do their job, whether it's drag bunting, hit and runs, making contact, you can see the approach of getting guys in scoring position immediately and then putting the ball in play which is key. They are a disciplined ball club and have a game plan offensively and on the mound, but it's also clear those guys enjoy playing and are having fun and what we define fun as is execution." -- Rembielak