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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SOFTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 20, 2015Yvette HealyTHE MODERATOR: Head coach Yvette Healy is here. We will have an opening statement then take questions. COACH HEALY: Excited to be back in Madison. I had a couple of coaches say to me, I feel like you guys just started your season, and I said, well, it seems like it, but when you're on the road the first couple of months, it seems like we just started, but we're actually in the home stretch here, so it should be a fun weekend to have Senior Day. I think that's what everybody is focusing on right now. We have a ton of great local kids on the team that have been tremendous leaders and great character kids for us celebrating their Senior Day, so we're looking to capping the season off and sending them off hopefully in style, and I think there is going to be a lot of fans in Madison this weekend with Crazy Legs and the spring game and us hosting Nebraska. It's going to be a fun weekend in Madison. Q. How's your team playing, would you say? COACH HEALY: You know, they're playing really hard right now, and that's the fun part as a coach. Our seniors in particular, we've got two walk‑ons in that class with Maria Van Abel from Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and Megan Tancill from Edgewood High School, right here in Madison, and they have just been the best, hard‑working kids that have bought in. It's one of those years that could have been really, really tough with ‑‑ that was the class when we took over that we had a lot of kids decommit in the interim of when you take over a program, and great leaders like that that came in and have become scholarship kids for us, and they're having their best season of their career. They have helped keep us afloat and helped us to keep battling through the season. That would be the first thing that I would say when I look at this team, like, man, they fight! Q. Can you kinda talk about the freshmen class, especially Kelsey Jenkins having a lot of progress lately? COACH HEALY: Oh, sure. Kelsey Jenkins is one of the hitters we brought in in this freshmen class from Arizona. She is really coming along. She just looked like a freshman that knew how to take a lot of walks early in the season, and she has got a great eye and has broken the single season walk record, which you never see from a kid that's not hitting that well or doesn't have power numbers. Typically the kids getting walks are the big dogs that people are pitching around, but there is something strange in the Big Ten this year, that the zone is really small, and I think it's going on all over the country that people are getting walked, and Kelsey has been a kid that has benefited from that but now she is starting to swing the bat as well. So this weekend at Illinois she had a couple of home runs and she really has been on a tear the month of April, knock on wood, but she has been fun to see her come along and come into her own, and I think she is going to break a lot of offensive records at Wisconsin. Q. You mentioned the team's fight and things like that. Did you know, though, that this year the results on the field might not be as good as what you have had in the past and it might be a little more trying? And how close are you to getting back to where you are accustomed to? COACH HEALY: We knew it would be a tough year. We're one of those sports where you've got to balance where you graduate kids and your money and the last couple of years have been fun, but we knew we had giant classes that ‑‑ two years ago we won the Big Ten, graduated five full scholarships, and last year four, so if you graduate 75% of your scholarships in two years, it's great if you can make a run but you know there is going to be work ahead of you, so we knew it would be a challenge and living it is always different than seeing it on paper. So I think that's the thing as a staff, that we're competitive and to stay going with it, but I'm pleased with how hard they're fighting. I think this could have been one of those years that you could have seen a lot of unrest, and the team is just giving it what they've got, and I think from the talent level we've got they're really maximizing their talent and getting better, and as a coach that's all you can ask for, and of course you want results but of course our goal is to keep recruiting and bringing in the talent and we're committed to it, and we've got some really good kids coming in in the future, too. Q. Did you see a boon in recruiting because of your success over the past couple of years? COACH HEALY: It's helped. I think the success of the athletics department across the board helps us with your Final Fours and your Rose Bowls, and for us it helps, too, because when we took over you were recruiting to a different caliber kid, and it takes a couple years to grow. You're recruiting to the best you can of where the program stands and we definitely are in more houses now than ever before, but that's five years into it. So I think you will see it pay off probably five years down the road, and if we can have the patience to enjoy it but every year it gets better of the types of kids that we are in the mix on and some of the commitments that we've got regionally, we're super excited about. Q. You've got Nebraska and you have Minnesota, too, so those are two of the top three teams in the Big Ten. COACH HEALY: They are. Q. Interesting couple of weeks? COACH HEALY: It's going to be tough. They swing the bats, both of those teams, and have very good pitching, so from our standpoint it's great because you want to see the best teams. I think you're always trying to look at how you match‑up, but what a tough stretch to have to go through and even Western Illinois swings the bat, and they are playing really well. So there are no light games on the schedule, but that's how the conference is, I think, in general. People are scoring 6 plus runs a game in the Big Ten right now, which is crazy, I think, if you look at numbers. It used to be a 2‑1 ball game world, and now you've got to score 6, 8, 10 runs to win a game, and you've got to hit the long ball, and that's something that we're committed to. We have had a couple of big kids get injured that it's hurt, and our senior class has done a great job, but they're just speed kids that steal a lot of bases, and we have to work hard for our runs. Q. That being said, can these next two weeks turn a season around, especially heading into Big Ten tournament play? COACH HEALY: Oh, sure. Even though we're in the home stretch there are a lot of big games left, so if you can match‑up and hold down these great offenses and finding ways to score against them, I think you can give yourself momentum. It's a big stretch for us, but more than anything in a year like this you're just trying to see improvement so every game we go out, we say let's see some good softball, and the fight has been there, and the passion, and it's been some great dog fights out there, and I think that's what we're looking for is to just make Wisconsin proud to have that great offense, defense, and that heart. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Thanks, Yvette. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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