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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESMay 30, 2013Melissa BrownRaven ChavanneKat DotsonEllen RenfroeRalph WeeklyOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Tennessee – 9 Florida – 2 THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by student‑athletes Raven Chavanne, Melissa Brown, Kat Dotson and Ellen Renfroe. We'll start with an opening comment from Coach and go to the floor with questions. COACH WEEKLY: First of all, I want to congratulate Tim Walton and the Florida Gators. We've played them four time this season. We've won two; they've won two. And if you look at our season stats in the SEC, we're right next to each other. They won the SEC conference on the last day over us by .27 percentage points. I have a ton of respect for them, and I have a ton of respect for what they do. Great team. Right now, it's all about these kids right here. I've been so proud of our kids the way they faced adversity against Alabama and came back and won, and I want to make this brief, but I want to say one thing. When the score was 3‑2 I called them together before we went to bat and I said you are not going to back into a championship. You are not going to back into the championship. You have to explode and you have to explode right now or they'll come on and take it from you, and they did the rest. It's all about the players. Q. Ellen, you guys made this trip last year and go 0‑2. How does it feel to be in the driver's seat this time around? ELLEN RENFROE: I think it feels great to get that first win underneath our belt. Coming in with a little confidence and getting that victory especially over a great team like Florida, like Coach was saying, we're just excited. We've got to move on and focus on the next team. Enjoy this while we can, but we have business to take care of later. Q. Kat, could you just talk about first of all getting those three runs right out of the gate in the top of the first, and then just having to respond again later after they cut it to 3‑2, and the hits you had. KAT DOTSON: (No Microphone). I thought we did that, and then (No Microphone). Q. Kat, you mentioned how Coach challenged you guys. Can did you sense in the dugout that the feeling was good going into right after they had cut the lead to 3‑2? Did it feel like we're going to come back and explode offensively? KAT DOTSON: Yeah, we expected Florida to come back; they're a great team, a great offensive team. So we're used to having to fight back. So we're just really comfortable and confident going to the last inning. Q. Raven, to come out and open the game as many times as you've seen Hannah Rogers, you probably didn't expect she was going to be giving you free passes like that? RAVEN CHAVANNE: Yeah, I mean, we thought it would be expected, but she's a great pitcher, first‑team All‑American. But she didn't have her best stuff today, but I'm sure she'll have it the next time she goes up on the mound. So if we face her again, I'm preparing to face her if we see her later on in the tournament. She's great. Q. What was it like for you to have the lead?  (No Microphone)? ELLEN RENFROE: It definitely was. Like Kat was saying, I really focused on winning that first inning, and they did a great job of doing that. But as a pitcher, I tried not to get caught up in what the offense is doing and continue to play like it was a 0‑0 ballgame, and a 1‑0 ballgame and just continue to attack on every single pitch and focus on one out at a time. Q. Ralph, you had 11 hits from eight different players. Can you talk about how much of a team effort you got today from your girls? COACH WEEKLY: We did, and we got a lot of those hits down in the bottom of the order. Because Hannah is so great and because of the respect we had against her, we worked against Hannah all week, against emulating her. So we were a little surprised when Haeger came in and goes, wow, you know. But you know, like Raven said, that doesn't happen very often. Hannah's come out on top as many times as we've come out on top. But we were really prepared for Hannah, and I think that helped us get out and get a lot of hits. Q. As Ellen's pitch count started to rise and you guys started into crease the lead, did the wheels start turning about the next day and the next day and where the rotations would be? COACH WEEKLY: Not at all, not at all. I told Ellen in the sixth inning, this is your game. When Florida stormed back 3‑2, track record shows Ellen has had the best success against Florida. There are teams that Ivy's had the best success, but we weren't going to change. We were going to go with Ellen to the end, win or lose. Q. Melissa, I think one run gets walked in there in the first, and they bring in Haeger. Just talk about the hit you got. You probably weren't expecting to see her, first of all. But talk about that hit you got that drove in a couple of runs and really created some space? MELISSA BROWN: Yeah, I've been really focusing on swinging at good pitches, especially with the bases loaded like they were. Just focusing on getting my pitch. I was 2‑0 before Haeger came in, and I wanted to make sure I got the right pitch to do what I needed to do with that ball. So just focusing on the right pitch. Q. To follow up on the question from a second ago, if you could talk a little bit about the D, and the luxury of having two solid pitchers and being able to fall back on that rather than having to ride one ace all the way through a tournament like this? COACH WEEKLY: It really is a luxury, and Ivy Renfroe really is a great pitcher. If you look at their stats, that's probably why either neither one of them made All‑American because they're so unselfish. I definitely mean unselfish. If you look at their records, neither one of them is a 20‑game winner, and they both could have been, but they're like 18‑3 and 17‑4 or something like that. They told us at the start of the season all we care about is the team winning. We don't care about making All‑Americans and winning 30 games, those kind of things. And Cheyanne Tarango, as you saw against Alabama, is no slouch either. So we're fortunate to have some good pitching. That is what Tim Walton said the other day is true. This game is about pitching and offense. Don't let anybody think it's any different. I think Tim said pitching and defense, but I think it's pitching and offense. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH WEEKLY: I don't know where I got that. I'm an advocate of lots of players. We'll carry 20 players if we can, but we generally carry more. We might have been able to use 18, but we could have used a couple of pinch runners today, but we didn't have them available. Q. Ellen, in the top of the fifth, the ESPN cameras caught you having a snack in the dugout. Is that a ritual? Is that an every‑game thing or were you just hungry? ELLEN RENFROE: Yeah, I just got hungry. We had breakfast earlier like 10 this morning and missed lunch, so I just needed something to get me through the rest of the game. Q. What did you have? ELLEN RENFROE: Turkey sandwich. Didn't work too well for TV. Q. Ralph, what do you know about Washington? Any experience with them? COACH WEEKLY: I don't even know what I saw on television. I watched both of their games against Missouri, and I just know they're very good. They won the Pac‑12, I believe, and they're very good. Did Oregon win it? Well, they were right there, right? I'm sure they were. I just know they're good. I know their leadoff hitter when I was with the USA team last summer. Hayward, she played against us in Canada and did a tremendous job against our best pitchers, Chelsea, and all the rest of them. So they're very good. And that walk‑off home run today puts the spirit in any coach's heart. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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