	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

May 30, 2015

OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

Alabama 2 - Oregon 1

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy, student-athlete Alexis Osorio, student-athlete, Marisa Runyon, student-athlete Danae Hays, student-athlete Danielle Richard and student-athlete Chandler Dare. Coach, general comments about the game.

COACH MURPHY: I just want to say congrats to Coach (Mike) White on a heck of a year. This is the second year in a row we had to play them. And he just does a great job and a very, very good team and a hell of a pitcher. Just congrats to them. And I know at the World Series everybody is good. But she comes in and she's 30 and 3. And just a great pitcher. But I thought Lexi (Alexis Osorio) came back bigger, better, stronger than she ever has this year, especially from Thursday night. And then I thought our defense did a really good job. And usually in the postseason you have to have good starting pitching. You have to have good team defense. And the third key is a timely hit and Chandler Dare got it.

Q. Patrick, can you talk about Chandler, I know you have a lot of options in that position and Chandler, can you talk about your big day and being a World Series hero?
CHANDLER DARE: First off, I couldn't have done it without my two teammates on base, Dani (Danielle Richard) with the clutch hit, being out there first off. And then I was just seeing it down, see it down, see it in my zone and happened to get that pitch and drove it.

COACH MURPHY: I don't remember when it was, but I know it was either, it was before a game or maybe the day before a game and we were going to face a lefty. And I went up to Chandler (Dare) and I said, you're not going to freak out against a lefty, are you? She said, no, sir, my dad's left-handed. I've seen a left-handed pitch since I was 3 years old. I said, okay, and I remembered that. That's why she got the start.

Q. Chandler, is this the first game in which your hit scored the winning runs?
CHANDLER DARE: South Alabama was the other one. South Alabama was the other game.

Q. I wanted you to be able to say first time ever.
CHANDLER DARE: Thank you. At the World Series, yes.

Q. Danielle and Danae, you guys, you got the double, can you talk me through the at-bats?
DANAE HAYS: Yeah, it was my first at-bat and I was just telling myself to see a lot of pitches because it's been an entire year since I've seen (Cheridan) Hawkins. So I just wanted to see a lot of pitches off of her. And it worked out in my favor. She couldn't find the zone. And then Dani (Danielle Richard) came up.

DANIELLE RICHARD: I'm just going up there, always having a plan. Looking in. Got two strikes on me. And I just knew I had to battle, battle, battle until I could get a pitch I could hit. I think it was 3-2, and she brought one in right over the plate. I knew she would either have to bring it in over the plate or it was going to be a ball. So just a great hit, I guess.

Q. Coach, can you talk about going up against LSU tonight and the job that Beth Torina has done in the four years?
COACH MURPHY: Beth has done an awesome job. The whole organization is great. We knew it was going to be a battle. We didn't get to play them this year. They were one of the four off our SEC schedule. I told the team I watched them probably at least 15, 16 times on TV. And top to bottom, they're very, very good. They have a deep pitching staff. And they've got some pop in their lineup, specifically, with Bianka (Bell), Sahvanna (Jaquish), even the -- (Bailey) Landry, the slapper, has got major pop. So it's going to be a good matchup.

Q. Coach, three hits, I think. Do you think it's coming around at all? Or is it just enough or is the hitting --
COACH MURPHY: I think it's better. I thought, you know, one thing that we had said we wanted to be really aggressive. And I thought the majority of the hitters were aggressive. I know Danae (Hays), (Marisa) Runyon, Leona (Lafaele) -- Chaunsey (Bell) hit the ball hard. It seemed like it was hanging up in the air today. The wind was blowing across left to right. And Runyon's, specifically that one, I thought it had a shot but it kind of died when it hit the air. But lefty versus lefty, that really worried me. And of course the little lefty gets a double and the two RBIs on a single. So, you know, it was much better than Thursday night.

Q. Coach, Alexis, for both of you, Alexis faced one over the minimum today. Had some help with the caught stealing. What was working, what helped get through this game?
ALEXIS OSORIO: Everything -- pretty much my curve and back-door curve were working really well today. I was moving it off the plate. Me and Steph (Stephanie VanBrakle) had a game plan that we were going to work back and off the plate. We weren't going to give them anything too sweet for them to hit. My rise ball, it came in handy when I really needed it.

COACH MURPHY: I thought her spin was awesome. I know one of her backdoor curves, you could hear it as it crossed the plate. It was spinning that much. So for a freshman to do what she did against a really, really good hitting team, it's a great feat.

Q. Patrick, didn't have a lot of hits. How much did it help, I think five of the last six games coming into this you had seen a lefty? And also how big was the pick-off, the caught-stealing play there, especially for the fielder to stay with it?
COACH MURPHY: Number one, that was huge. It was a good throw and she probably would have been safe if she would have stayed on. But Demi (Turner) kept the tag and that was a huge out. And then lefty, we were kind of lucky that we saw Paige Parker for three games, and we saw the young lady from Washington for two games, about 12 innings. So we saw 12 innings in regionals, 21 innings in Super Regionals. And I think everybody was okay with it. They've seen so much of it the last three weekends, I don't think it fazed them.

Q. Marisa, can you just talk about this past week for you, last Saturday in Tuscaloosa, grand slam, come back here, lose on Thursday, help the team win today, what has it been like for you?
MARISA RUNYON: It's been fun. Last weekend I was struggling, obviously. And I've told a lot of people I just went up to at-bat and looked for a pitch to hit. And the greatest part was meeting my team at home plate and celebrating with them. And we still had to get three outs. But coming back, we're just living in the moment here and playing where our feet are. And it's fun to keep on going, and as Haylie (McCleney) said yesterday, why not us? And we're just going to keep fighting and fighting to wear the jersey again.

Q. Patrick, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having yesterday off, because it seemed you get a day to rest but now you've got to turn right around and play again?
COACH MURPHY: That's the big disadvantage. You've got to play two today, two tomorrow, if you can get there. So you're playing back-to-back doubleheaders which hardly ever happens anymore in college softball. SEC plays Friday, Saturday, Sunday -- single, single, single. The doubleheader really hasn't come into our play since probably the last weekend of February when we played a tournament at home and played two games on a Saturday. Advantage, I think you can use that day off to wash away the bad. And we had about an hour and a half practice, and we ended it with staff batting practice, which is one of the most fun times we had. Everybody from the SID to the radio guy to the managers to our boss, Marie Robbins, the SWA. And our team doctor, who was a former baseball player at Alabama that took me deep, that everybody was really impressed with. So it lightened the mood. It was the end of practice and you saw a lot of smiles and laughs, and that's what we need at this time because it's really -- it's still the three things, the pitching, the team defense and then the key hit. I still think that's the recipe.

Q. Alexis, did you know any of the hitters from the traveling circuit and secondly your coach said bigger, better, stronger than ever. What enabled you to do a couple of days after the opening round?
ALEXIS OSORIO: Oregon has really good hitters. And me and Steph (Stephanie VanBrakle) have been talking about that since yesterday that we were just going to go right at them, and like I said before we weren't going to give them anything too good to hit. And just working it off the plate. And then -- I've known like one of them, maybe a couple of them. I knew Nikki Udria and then Lauren Lindvall. I knew I had to -- I was going to do whatever it took to help the team, just coming back stronger and getting mentally tougher the next game, and fighting to wear the jersey the next day.

Q. Danae and Danielle, when she said fighting to wear the jersey one more day, how important was it for you guys to not end this on a 0-2 and you have a whole day to think about this game and not over-think that this could have been the last game?
DANAE HAYS: After this tournament is over with, I can speak for me and Danielle (Richard) both, our softball career is done for. And our passion for this game for the past four years is gi-normous. And the heart we have for this game as five seniors, we just love it. We also love our teammates just as much as the game. And we want to win the game for our teammates. And I know they want to win them for us. And it's easy to over-think something when you have an entire day. But I don't know it's not really in the back of my mind that this could be the very end. Because I'm just trying to win a ballgame. So as of yesterday I didn't really put too much thought into win or loss. I just knew we had to give our team the best chance to win, so...

DANIELLE RICHARD: I just think the good part about having the day off yesterday is we just got to be around each other and enjoy each other's company. And I think it helps take our mind off who we're about to play and keep us from over-thinking, ah, I should have done this, should have done that in the last game. You be where your feet are. That's just what we're best at and just hanging with the girls and that helps us keep our mind right.

Q. Your thoughts on playing LSU tonight? You played big games over the years obviously and now it's on a huge stage here in Oklahoma City?
DANAE HAYS: All I can say is thank God it's not in Tiger Park. That's a tough place to play at. But we're just excited about playing them. I was kind of disappointed this year when I didn't see them on the schedule. They're always a really fun team to play and compete against and they have great players with, they're just really nice people as well. And so I'm really looking forward to playing them and it's going to be a really fun game.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297