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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WOLRD SERIESMay 31, 2017Lindsey CargillRachel GarciaSahvanna JaquishBailey LandryRiley SartainOklahoma City, Oklahoma THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, ladies. I just want to explain to you a little bit just real quick about the NFCA. We are the coaches' association. Every coach here belongs to our association. We do a lot of educational things, a lot of events, all sorts of things softball -- well, one of the neat he's things we get to do is present a lot of awards, and one of our most prestigious awards is the Division I All-American award, which these young ladies are now a part of. I want to explain to you a little bit about the process because we get questions, and then I'll turn it over to questions for the all Americans. But if you think about it, there's almost 300 Division I schools, and if you think of a roster size of 20 on each school, that's 6,000 potential student-athletes, and as Brian mentioned, there's 55 honorees. So it's an elite, elite, elite club. These are the best of the best of the best in 2017. The process, every head coach can nominate up to eight players from their team, whoever they deem is worthy of having that type of All-American season. In early May, we announce the all-region teams, so there's a first, second, third team all region, which all of you have seen. If you're a first or second team all region, even into the third team, you are eligible to be an All-American. We have a Division I All-American committee that's made up of 10 coaches across the country. They represent a different region of the country, and on Memorial Day, we had a 12-hour meeting where they selected the all Americans. So that's how it works. It gets eventually whittled down. But I'd just like to congratulate the athletes again, and Brian has put out the release. You can also go to our website, NFCA.org. Not only do we have the release but we have an All-American video for the first team and an All-American video for the second team and an All-American video for the third team, and I'd invite you to go to our website and watch those because they're pretty awesome. With that, I'll turn it over to the media for questions. Q. Savannah, the honor of being the first from LSU to do what you've done with this All-American list, what does that mean to you and kind of characterize your career to this point. SAHVANNA JAQUISH: It's an honor to be the first four-time All-American. There are a lot of great players before me, so it's just an honor to be picked consecutively four times in a row, and congrats to all the girls who are sitting up here, because they're good, too. Q. I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about coming to Oklahoma City. Some of you have been really recently, last year. Some of you are making your first trips. What does it mean to be in this facility? There's ongoing renovations. There's more renovations to come. Kind of put into words what it is to be in this arena at this event and what it means to you individually. RILEY SARTAIN: I think it's an incredible experience to be able to come here and play on this field that has so much history in the game of softball, and I think it's also been incredible to just see how the stadium has grown and how the fan base of our sport has grown so much, and I feel honored to be able to get the chance to play here. BAILEY LANDRY: Yeah, the history here is incredible, so I think for my first year until now, the expansions that they've had has helped the game grow. They help with fans and just the experience be what it is. It's an incredible opportunity. I'm blessed to be able to be here for the third time, so it's just awesome to be able to play here, and it's a dream. SAHVANNA JAQUISH: I think that it is the most magical place to play in. Tiger Park is pretty close to it, but there's nothing like the fans. There's nothing like the atmosphere here. Oklahoma City does a great job, and I'm just excited for the competition. LINDSEY CARGILL: Really exciting to be here. Excited to bring my team here, and the atmosphere is amazing. To do it my freshman year, and excited to be on the field again playing the best competition in the nation. So yeah. RACHEL GARCIA: Second time here but first time playing, and just super excited. I mean, as a kid I told my parents that I'm happy to be here and I'm living my dream, so super excited. Q. Holly Rowe has been a big part of this event for a long time, and I know she has a deep connection with a lot of you guys. I just wanted to know if you have any personal stories of advice she has given you, the kind of strength that she's shown through her fight through cancer, just kind of what it means to be able to be with her at this event. SAHVANNA JAQUISH: Holly Rowe is an amazing person. I've got to work with her throughout my four years. She just doesn't ever show weakness. You never even know that she has been battling this battle for a long time. She's just an inspiration. Q. Lindsey, you guys will be playing Oklahoma again. What's that like? You played three games during the regular season and now you're going to face them in the first round of the World Series. What do you think about that? LINDSEY CARGILL: Yeah, they're a great team, great ballclub, and I feel like we're ready to compete with them. We've seen them plenty of times. We know what to expect, and they know what to expect from us, so it's going to be a great game. Like I said, we're facing a lucky pitcher. We came from Arizona facing a lucky pitcher, so I think we're really prepared for Paige or Paige Lowary. Q. Riley, I know you've answered this a thousand times this year, so I apologize, but can you kind of speak on the hard work it's taken from last year to this year and for now you being nominated as an All-American? RILEY SARTAIN: Yeah, so everyone always asks me what would I change, what was the change in either my mechanics or my mindset from last year to this year, and my answer is always I didn't really change much. I mean, there's a big difference between your freshman and your sophomore year, especially in a conference like the SEC, so really just going out there with confidence that my team has my back if I don't get my job done, somebody else is going to, and they're depending on me every at-bat just like I depend on them. Q. Riley, obviously it's tough for everyone to get here, but when you talk about what your teammate Trinity has gone through this postseason, what kind of strength have you seen from her in this postseason? RILEY SARTAIN: You know, every time I talk to Trin, obviously what she's going through is really hard and none of us can really relate to what she's going through. She told me that softball is just her therapy and every time she's on the field we try to keep it lighthearted, we try to keep her mind off of everything that's going on, and I think that the best way to do that is just to keep her laughing and to make sure that everything is not too heavy on her, and obviously after we beat Tennessee in that third game it was really emotional for all of us. But I'm just really proud of her and her comeback from her situation. Q. Sahvanna, a couple years ago you guys had the fish in the dugout that got a lot of attention. I know the rules have changed since then, but will you have anything in your dugout to increase your team's mojo this season? SAHVANNA JAQUISH: Coach said no live animals when we went to Wal-Mart, so we're just going to keep it like we always do. We're crazy in the dugout. We now switch our jerseys on backwards. Some of us get really crazy and put our pants on backwards. You'll probably see some of that rally stuff going on in the dugout. Juanita is still alive. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. Congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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