Game Five Quotes: Mizzou 8, Illinois State 4
5/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 21, 2011
Head Coach Ehren Earleywine
On the play at the end of the game against DePaul...
“We are not going to get into finger-pointing. We win together and we lose together. We will pick up the pieces and play tomorrow.”
On adjustments for tomorrow's game...
“We talked about a bunch of technical stuff, but in short, when you have a rise ball pitcher you have to hit ground balls and when you have a drop ball pitcher throwing you have to try to hit fly balls. We never adjusted and we never did that. I think we are going to be okay tomorrow, the team was pretty determined and pretty disappointed in their performance. They know what they did wrong and we will see if they are able to adjust. I told them that if there is any team that can come out of the loser's bracket and win the tournament it is the Missouri Tigers.”
On Chelsea Thomas pitching two games tomorrow...
“I don't even know if she is going to throw twice. I'm just going to give her the ball in the first game and let her throw as long as she can throw. If she has to go down midway through the first game then we will bring Nottelmann in, we gotta do what we gotta do. I'm going to leave that decision up to her and also how they are hitting. If she throws well and she feels comfortable then we will keep her out there for two games. I'm not real concerned about that.”
C Megan Christopher
On the last play against DePaul...
“I saw the runner getting to second and my catcher instinct says nobody gets to second. I found myself too far out form the plate and there she goes trotting in.”
On bouncing back before Mizzou's second game...
“We went over to our team room and sat together as a team. You could tell everybody was down, so Chelsea went to the marker board and told everyone to pick up a marker and write one thing positive about this team. Before we knew it there were 23 or 24 positive affirmations about this team on the board. It was everything from 'we are strong' to 'we got each others' backs' to 'we are going to win this.' I think we all grabbed ahold of that and came out to this game fine.”
On adjustments to be made against DePaul for tomorrow...
“From a hitting standpoint we have to get on top of the rise ball.”
P Chelsea Thomas
On coming out to pitch tomorrow...
“This is do-or-die time and they have my arm as long as they need it.”
On her message on the marker board...
“I put, 'we will dominate.' I think that is the mindset we need to have going in. If we score in the first few innings it is a done deal, we have the game in the bag and we didn't do that in our second game. I think that maybe after winning the first game we were too relaxed for the second game and we got caught up in that. We regrouped and we are very vengeful so we will come back and suprise them.”
