2015 NCAA Softball Championship - GatorZone.com
Tim Walton, Head Coach, Florida
Opening Statement:
?Thanks to our crowd. I thought they were great today. It was hot, and they did a really good job of coming out and bringing the late-inning energy. Congratulations to FAU, what a great season they had and a great run through this regional. To the other teams, Hofstra and Florida A&M, I know they all had great seasons. No one likes to lose, but it's better to lose in a regional than anywhere else. It was just a gutty, gritty performance today. I thought their kid (FAU pitcher Amanda Wilson) pitched a great game changing speeds and really did a good job keeping us off-balance. We tried so many different things to do and so many things not to do in order to keep things normal. Lauren (Haeger) pitched a phenomenal game and made some nice defensive plays. That backhand Katie (Medina) made in the 5-6 to end the one inning was a nice play. Lauren got the big hit, the one hit we needed, and I'm just thankful for that. I thought Lauren pitched a really nice game against a team that had been swinging the bat very well."
On if he was surprised about how the game played out:
"Not really. It's funny, when you go through that and you get a kid (Wilson) pitching really well, I didn't want to string things along. I was hoping that we could get to a point where she would make a mistake, and we could get a big hit. I was more looking at maybe they were getting ready to make a pitching change and change some things up. It really didn't look like she wanted to pitch to Lauren the first at-bat. That was the only time she wasn't as sharp or as crisp, so I felt like maybe they were going to try to pitch around her a little bit or change it up. But the kid threw such a good game, I'd have a hard time in that other dugout making a change either. No, I wasn't surprised. Look at their scores all year long -- they pitched a 1-0 game against FSU. They've had some good games, so this kind of game was pretty sharp."
On waiting all game for a big hit:
"It's frustrating; it is. You work so hard, and you expect so much and you have so much confidence in your players that it is frustrating. But nothing's more frustrating than watching your team give their best and it not be good enough to get hits or get on base, even. Their shortstop (Emily Lochten) made some nice plays as well, kind of got caught a couple times in between hops. I thought overall that was probably the biggest frustration for me. They're trying so hard -- I don't know what the speeds were; it wasn't like we're seeing a ton of velocity. It was just a great, crafty left-handed pitcher just changing speeds up and putting the ball where she wanted to."
On his strategy in sending Kirsti Merritt from first on Lauren Haeger's RBI hit:
"I was scoring Kirsti the whole way, right off the bat. You can usually tell by where I'm at location-wise. If I'm down the line toward the plate, you know I think it's going to be one of those potential last-minute hold-ups, even a potential inside-the-parker. I was up the line. I was even with the base the whole way. I didn't even work my way down just because of the way the ball came off. If the ball would've came off the wall straight to the right fielder, it would've been a different play. It would've been the play that Kirsti wanted, that slide play at the plate. I wasn't going to stop her; I can tell you that right now. Kirsti's probably one of our best first-to-home runners. She does a good job, she gets good reads and she flies."
On playing Kentucky in the super regional:
Congratulations to them, getting through the regional and getting to that point. We played tough games against Kentucky this year and even previous years. They're a good team. I think the one thing you can look at from Kentucky is they didn't throw Kelsey Nunley the whole year this year, and their record in the conference may have reflected that potentially, but Kentucky's good. They've got a good pitching staff. They've got some nice kids and four pitchers that can easily come in and do some things. Defensively, their shortstop (Christian Stokes) played a phenomenal weekend against us as well. They're good. It's going to be tough for us. It's hard to beat somebody three times, let alone having to beat them five times to make your next move."
On the interference call:
"He [the home plate umpire] called obstruction by the umpire. If you watch the play develop, it looked like it was an unintentional intentional pitch-out. They went to a high pitch, and the catcher actually backed up on that particular pitch because it was going to be a high pitch -- that's usually what catchers will do. Apparently on her arm-swing, she did hit the umpire, and that's what he called. It's not a judgment call; it's by rule that's what has to happen. If he interferes with the play on the throw, then there's what you got. The count was 1-1, and he actually put 2-1 back up there."
Nicole DeWitt, IF, Florida
On getting the first hit off FAU P Amanda Wilson:
"I was just trying to get on base and hope it would start a chain reaction with our team. For my second hit, we started getting on base too, so it worked."
On her diving catch in left field:
"It was so exciting. I looked at Kirsti, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that was so much fun!' It was just cool."
Lauren Haeger, P, Florida
On if it's nerve-wracking pitching in a close game:
"Not nerve-wracking at all. That's my favorite thing in the whole entire world, to be out there in situations like that. The crowd was in it, everyone was in it, everyone was hyped and that's why I came here, for situations like that. I didn't come here to be nervous. It was just really fun, and I'm glad that we could pull through and win."
On her mindset pitching to FAU in the home half of the eighth inning:
"We were on top, and I needed to get three outs, I need to make my pitches and use my defense. That's what I did, just execution."
Kirsti Merritt, OF, Florida
On her plan for scoring off Lauren's hit:
"Just run as fast as I can! One of my strengths is my speed. We practice base-running every day, and I knew I could score from first on a hit like that. It's always exciting. It probably would've been more exciting if I could've slid, but I guess that was better that I was fast enough to be able to stand up. It's always good whenever you hear Coach yelling, 'Go go go!'"
Joan Joyce, Head Coach, Florida Atlantic
Opening Statement:
"We came to win, and we came up one [run] short again. I do have to give a lot of credit to Amanda [Wilson] for keeping Florida off balance, because she did a great job against them. I think the coach at third base ? Tim [Walton] ? was getting his hat up and off, because he was really nervous because the game was going so long and they couldn't get to her [Wilson]. She did an excellent job. We're up against the number one team in the country; they're there for a reason. I thought we played them very tough and I am so proud of my team for competing against them the way they did, and competing in this whole tournament the way they did."
On how Amanda Wilson handles difficult ?situations:
"Don't let her fool you. She has nerves of steel. She goes out there and you wouldn't even know there was anybody else on the other side. She would just keep pitching."
On her defense:
"Emily [Lochten] made a great play on the bouncer to shortstop, getting that girl at home. I think they thought that they scored on that play. Emily's arm is so strong that the ball just gets there so fast."
On Lochten's consistent play at shortstop all season:
"Very consistent. She's a freshman, so she makes a few errors here and there, but she makes up for the errors she makes by making so many great plays."
On Lochten playing with a knee brace:
"It's slowed her down a little bit. She was a lot faster at the beginning of the year ? it slowed her down a little bit. She'll probably be rehabbing it. I don't actually know what is wrong with it. It could be a bursa. All of the kids that slide head first ? they get that bursa problem on the knees because they hit their knees so hard."
On facing Lauren Haeger:
"To be honest with you, it surprised me that she didn't strike out as many as normal. It surprised me how well we hit her. I thought that we would struggle with her a little bit more. We seemed to hit the ball pretty well off of her. They made a few nice catches against us."
On this season:
"We started off the season really well and we just kind of slowed down in the middle a little bit when we had some injuries, but other than that, we've played fairly well. I have three freshmen in the lineup, a few sophomores ? we are really basically young. The only seniors in the lineup are my left fielder and first baseman. Of course we are going to miss those two, because Lindsey [Shell] had a great tournament. She had seven or eight hits in the tournament. I said to Laura [Mann], "Did you ever see the day when Florida walked you on purpose, Intentionally walked you?" She said no. I think we are on the right track right now. We have a couple pitchers coming in next year. They probably have a little work to do, but I still have three pitchers that are still going to be with us the next two years. Amanda [Wilson] is only a sophomore. Kylee Hanson, who has been here pitching the other games, is only a sophomore. I have both of them for two years, and Tatum [Buckley], who relieved Sam [Samantha] Messer yesterday for a couple of innings, is a freshman. My pitching is intact. We are basically going to look the same next year. Hopefully, we hit the ball, with our being a year older, a little bit better. We should be okay."
Amanda Wilson, Pitcher, Florida Atlantic
On what was working for her and how she kept Florida out of scoring position:
"I am usually pretty successful. I keep hitters off balance. I mix all of my speeds. I have three different speeds so I am using my different speeds, keeping them off balance. It just worked out."
On how she handled the nerves of playing in such a game:
"Playing at Florida? It was nerve-racking. I was just trying to focus, trying to compete each inning ? give us a chance."
On giving up the game-winning hit to Haeger:
"We went with the same game plan that we did to her [Haeger] all day. Drop outside and she just went ahead and hacked at it. She's a good hitter so it just went in her favor."
On getting out of a bases loaded jam in the seventh inning
"I was just thinking one at a time ? just focus on the batter. Just trying to get out of it. I got out of that one. Just one at a time."
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