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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESMay 31, 2012Ken EriksenJessica MouseSara NevinsKourtney SalvarolaOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Oklahoma – 5 THE MODERATOR: From South Florida we have Head Coach Ken Eriksen and student‑athletes Jessica Mouse, Sara Nevins, and Kourtney Salvarola. We'll start with a comment from the coach and then we'll open the floor for questions. COACH ERIKSEN: They're a pretty tough team. They've got a pretty tough pitcher, and we've got a pretty tough pitcher and a pretty good team also. And I thought that their team took advantage of a couple of mistakes that we made pitching‑wise, and we did the same, except we might have made a few more. But that's a tough place to play. You're playing in front of a lot of hometown people and so forth. My team just showed me what they're made of because they didn't show any of that type of nervousness whatsoever or any deviant behavior from the task at hand, and that was to go out there and just play softball, and I was very proud of what they did today. And I sure hope that we don't get any questions like moral victory type stuff, because I want everybody to understand that we didn't win. And there's not a lot of people up here that are very happy about just competing out on that ball field today. And you've got to play flawless softball to move on into the winner's bracket stuff. And the nice opportunity that we have is to take tomorrow, do some things to get better for Saturday, and come out to play whoever we play at 11:30. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Sara, can you talk about the challenge you're facing, a lineup that's hit as well as they have this year, and how much tougher was the second time through the lineup? SARA NEVINS: Well, I mean, I guess I wouldn't say it was that much tougher. It's the same, but just a couple of mistakes were made pitching‑wise. But I mean, that's all, pretty much. Q. Can you talk about the problems you had on the mound. You guys were the aggressors, really (indiscernible) had runners on base. How much did that help? Kind of just talk about on the mound. SARA NEVINS: Definitely helps. Had a lot of confidence in my teammates. They made a lot of good plays. And when we had runs, runners on, like, in scoring position, it definitely‑‑ it just made us, like, boost our confidence even more. Q. Sara, what was the mistake on‑‑ assuming it was a mistake‑‑ on Chamberlain's home run? SARA NEVINS: I mean, I guess I could have gotten the ball in more. But, I mean, just come back and play well next time. Q. A lot was said on ESPN last week about how the greater frequency of illegal pitch calls might have thrown you off mentally. Is it just a coincidence that after the second illegal pitch call is when the home run occurred? SARA NEVINS: No. The illegal pitches didn't bother me at all. It was just a mistake with my‑‑ just hitting the spot, that's all, but it didn't get to me or anything. Q. Coach talked about just the fans and playing Oklahoma a half hour from the campus. Just want to ask you about the USF fans that had come, the one section that had the T‑shirts. Jessica, if you can just talk about what you saw from them and whether that helped you guys at all, having a presence in the stands? JESSICA MOUSE: It always makes you feel good as a player when you have your fans and your fans‑‑ your friends and your family behind you, and I'm so thankful our fans were able to make it out to Oklahoma City. I know it was tough travels for some, last minute and the price of the tickets and hotels and so forth. But it's definitely nice to have people cheering for you in the corner, especially when you're going up against a team that's 20 miles down the road, they've got the whole state behind them. We're very thankful. I know everybody up here is thankful that their friends and family are up here. Q. Jessica and/or Kourtney, could you talk about what Keilani did over the course of the game? It seemed like she‑‑ well, based on results, seems like she got stronger as the game went longer. Maybe you just didn't get good swings on the ball, but what was she like through the seven innings? JESSICA MOUSE: Well, our approach was come out and be aggressive. I think after I came out and swung at the first pitch that she threw me. So after that, she got‑‑ once she got the lead, I think that gave her a little confidence, as any pitcher would. And she was changing speeds and she's a good pitcher and she's on the U.S.A. team for a reason. So that's pretty much it. KOURTNEY SALVAROLA: I think that Keilani, like Jessica said, she's on the U.S.A. team and is who she is because she's so good. But at the same time, I think our team did a really good job of putting balls in play. I'm sure Keilani doesn't have that often, considering she's a good pitcher, so I feel like our team did a pretty good job of putting balls in play, making them make the plays, as coach said capitalizing on her mistakes. She didn't throw many, but when she did, I think our team did a great job of jumping on the mistakes. But overall she's a good pitcher, and we're looking forward to facing her again. Q. For the players, talk about the preparations you had. Coach talked about how you guys weren't really awestruck or really nervous early as you might be in your first appearance here in Oklahoma City. Most of the girls from Oklahoma were here last year. Just what the key was to coming in prepared and not being awestruck by everything here. JESSICA MOUSE: I think all year, people have been either saying stuff‑‑ you know, we've played some of the top competition already in the country, so having that, and that confidence, because we beat some of those teams, so having that behind us and coming in here‑‑ we've already played on the road, we've played at Gainesville, and that's a hostile environment as well. So just having that experience, when you come into Oklahoma City, that kind of gave us a little boost of confidence and we were able to play relaxed. I don't think anybody was uptight at all. We had some fun and we did what we could do. They just beat us today. So should come out stronger on Saturday. SARA NEVINS: Yeah, it's just a game, no matter who you are or where you're playing. Either way, it's a game, World Series or not. So I don't think we were nervous at all. We just played the way we usually play. Things are going to happen. KOURTNEY SALVAROLA: We have a bunch of fun people, a bunch of different personalities, just a bunch of different girls. And we keep everything relaxed, fun, not really uptight. As Sara said, we came out and played it like it was any other game. Yes, there's a lot of fans and there's a lot of people here, but we're still playing with who we want to be playing with, and that's 22 USF players. And we're all about us, and I think that's the thing about our team is we're here for us and we're here to play and have fun keep. I think we keep things loose, not nervous or anything like that. Shell‑shocked, definitely not. I think we're here to win and we're here to have fun, so that's what we do. Q. For Ken, is the margin of error versus their three, four, five, is it smaller than other top teams you've faced? COACH ERIKSEN: Go from Martinez to Chamberlain, to Ricketts to Shults. It's almost like you're going through the top two to four batters on the New York Yankees. When they've had their run of five straight, like who do you pitch around? I mean, here you go, you walk Chamberlain, you get to Ricketts. You walk Ricketts to get to Shults. What do you do? So you're absolutely right, the margin of error becomes smaller at this level against a great hitting team like that. The kid down there struck out seven of them. Lindsey comes in, she strikes out two of them. We got in trouble with the walks obviously. You're going to give them five more, six more batters, hit by a pitch, seven more batters, and after a while, it's not just the third time around, it's the fourth time around. It's not just the second time around, it's the third time around. You're right, it's tough. The margin of error is a lot smaller against the better teams. We know that, we knew that. We had the same thing going against University of Florida, Central Florida, Hofstra, the same type of deal. And it just caught up to us a little bit today. But that's the great part about this tournament is that you go back and you take a look at what do you need to do better against either LSU or Cal to be able to continue on to Saturday night. We've done that all year long and I expect us to do the same thing. Where can we now tweak our machine to get a little bit better. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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