Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State Quotes

Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State
Postgame Quotes
April 2, 2014

On Kelsey Stevens' pitching:
“Exceptional. I thought she got great outs when she needed them on her own and with a little help from the defense. She had eight strikeouts, six hits, and we can win with that. For her to go seven innings, we never had any thought of making a change. I don't feel like anything got hit really hard, just bloopers or balls to the infield. I'm very impressed. She really had a good focus and competitive spirit tonight.”

On the team's offense on the night:
“I would say any Big 12 win is a great win. Do I think we were offensively a powerhouse tonight? No. We needed to make some at-bat adjustments that we made too late in the game. I felt like we wasted the first couple of innings just not making good decisions and not physically moving up in the box or doing things that we needed to do. We were early. We had too many balls up in the air that were routine fly balls. [Simone Freeman is] a good pitcher and you have to give her credit for making us chase those things. We need to be a little better and a little more disciplined at the plate to attack those things early and not wait until the end.”

On the younger players:
“I think at Iowa State we walked out feeling pretty big time. We faced a very good pitcher [tonight] and we realized that we need to make adjustments and work a little harder and share our knowledge. Physically, we have to make a change. Some of our new players like Kady Self, Whitney Ellis, Erin Miller, Leslie Miller, Jessica Vest, these are all players that weren't in the lineup a year ago at all, so they're learning on the fly, and it's fun to watch them because they're getting better. This one right here (Kady Self) is really making strides. I threw her up in the two-hole and she handles it and does what she needs to do. We're seeing growth and development, but we're still finding ways to win.”

On the upcoming Kansas series:
“Kansas is a very good team. They're a very confident team right now. They're not going to come in here afraid. They're going to bow up and our team is going to bow up right back. The fact that we have home-field advantage and we've got our crowd, that crowd was great tonight, we could feel the electricity, and we've got to create that. They've got some good pitching so we have to work on really being disciplined tomorrow in practice, keeping things out of the zone, not chasing and zoning things in that we can really hit hard. It's going to be a very good series. It's probably going to be one of the most important series that we have in our quest to win the Big 12 Championship.”

Sophomore Kelsey Stevens

On having confidence in the defense:
“As a pitcher it's nice having this defense and being confident that no matter where it's hit somebody is going to have my back.”

Sophomore Kady Self

On the team's defense:
“We work really hard and we really take pride in our defense.”

On having confidence recently at the plate:
“We've just all been working hard and hitting extra. We've been working with Lauren (Chamberlain). She's been helping us hit and been watching us, too. We work extra and have confidence. Getting at-bats and having confidence is my thing.”

Junior Shelby Pendley

On the team's defense:
“I think it's (the defense) a huge part. I think our defense really holds its own. All of our infield really works well together.”