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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESMay 31, 2012Frani EchavarriaJolene HendersonDiane NinemireJamia ReidOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA CALIFORNIA – 5 THE MODERATOR: Joining us from Cal, we have Head Coach Diane Ninemire and then our student‑athletes Frani Echavarria, Jolene Henderson, and Jamia Reid. We'll have an opening comment from Coach and then questions for the student‑athletes. COACH NINEMIRE: Well, today was a great game for California. We fell behind early in the game, but Jolene hung tough on the mound for us, and we just really had a great combination of our power. But mostly our short game was the factor today that overturned the game for us. And it was just a tremendous effort by everyone on our team today to help the success of our program. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Jamia, can you talk about how you guys did have the early deficit, but you have such a dynamic offense, just how you were going to chip away and then, of course, your run ended up being the difference there in the sixth. JAMIA REID: So we knew that, even though we were behind, that we knew we had to come back as a team, use our offense and our defense to make sure that we could come back. I just knew we could do it for Jolene. Like she was going to be working hard on the mound. Even though those two runs scored, she was going to work even harder to believe that us hitters could score some runs for her. Q. Along those lines, Jolene, sometimes 2‑0 in a softball game can be the difference, but this offense is one of the best in the country. Does that give you confidence that all right, that's all they're going to get, here we go, my offense will come back? And talk about your offense and knowing that a little rally early is not necessarily going to derail this team? JOLENE HENDERSON: Well, LSU has a really good pitching staff. In our team, we have a good hitting program. So we came up today and I got behind and I shouldn't do that as a pitcher. But they're such a strong offense, they come up on me. Like every inning, they're ready to go, they're ready to swing, they're aggressive, and they want to come out on top just as much as everybody else, but we had a lot of heart. And so coming from behind wins are stronger wins for us and they mean a lot more, and we just want to reach our goal. Q. Frani, how crazy of a week has it been? You guys have had some travel issues. You were here late. You get behind 2‑0, LSU is going crazy. What has been going through your mind this week? FRANI ECHAVARRIA: You know, traveling isn't always easy for our team. That's just another roadblock. But we got past that. That was a couple of days ago. But today we have got to focus on LSU. They're a great program. We got behind, but this team fights until the end, and I think you saw that today. Everyone pulled together. And even when some of us couldn't get it done, the next person handed the bat over or made the next play, and we got done as a team. Total team effort today. Q. Can all three of you talk about Oklahoma? It's a similar matchup, dynamic offense, great pitcher in Keilani. Just the matchup, two of the best teams in the country, they're very similar, can score runs a lot of different ways, good pitching in the circle. JOLENE HENDERSON: Oklahoma is a great team, and we've seen them play against Arizona and we watched them play a little bit today while we were in the room. And every team here is going to be a really strong team to come against. They can all score. They all have great pitching staff, and Oklahoma is one of those teams. And it's going to be a great game coming against them. FRANI ECHAVARRIA: Coming into the World Series, every team here did exactly what they needed to do and executed in every way possible to get here, so we already know we'll see some great games. Oklahoma is a great program and we've seen them in the past a couple times, so I think using maybe those games to help prepare, games that we've seen on TV, I think that we'll be ready. And as long as we play our game, I'm pretty sure we can give them a good game also. JAMIA REID: And coming into this, we knew it wasn't going to be easy. We knew it was going to be a fight to the end. I know some girls on that team and I know they're all great players, so it's going to be a great game. Q. Anything about Ricketts from you two? FRANI ECHAVARRIA: Rickets, she's a baller. But, yeah, I'm excited to compete against the best and hopefully we get the W. JAMIA REID: Oh, well, yeah. I'm definitely going to be just trying to put the ball in play, have them play me. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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