Oklahoma vs. Wichita State Postgame Quotes

Oklahoma Head Coach Patty Gasso

Opening statement:
“I thought that was everything I imagined and more. Wichita State is a very good team. They came out ready to play and you could feel that from the start. I'm really proud of the way our team attacked early in the first inning. We scored runs quickly. I thought our defense played well. I thought Paige [Parker] got better as the game went along. I felt like we really needed those two insurance runs late in the game, but that was a good start for this team against a very good team. When I saw that Wichita State was four seed, it was surprising because I know they can score runs. They came out ready to play. Their fans were with them. It was a fun atmosphere, and I think our team really enjoyed that.”

On the team's first inning:
“It always happens so fast that I can't even remember how it happened. They came out and just hit the ball hard. I think it started with Erin Miller and then Sydney [Romero]. What I'm really enjoying right now is our five, six, seven, eight, nine are doing their jobs big. Nicole [Pendley] is our six hole, Kady [Self] had a good game, Fale [Aviu] had a good game. We're working throughout our lineup, not just one part of it and that's really important once you go into postseason.”

On the lower part of the lineup:
“It's extremely important because you don't want any kind of hole in your lineup. Right now, as pitchers go on, they might feel, not like they can take a break, but maybe the lower part of the lineup is the softer part of the lineup. We want to make sure that a pitcher, if she's going to take a pitch off, that we're going to do something with it. I think that's what you're seeing with this group. In the last five games, Nicole Pendley, Fale Aviu, Kady Self, those are the lower five, six, seven, are all hitting .500, so they're getting hot at the right time. At that point in the lineup, you can turn it over to Erin Miller, Caleigh Clifton, Shay Knighten and Syd Romero. Those freshmen can hit it hard. It's a good thing that it's happening now.”

On Paige Parker:
“I felt her a little nervous at first. It's very typical for any pitcher. In front of her home crowd makes it a little more unnerving. I think once we scored those runs, it allowed her to settle down, but I definitely feel like she threw better fourth inning on.”

On Wichita State switching pitchers in the first inning:
“I don't think we get caught up in that. We just want to keep applying pressure, especially against a team like Wichita State. They're good. One swing can change the dynamic of the game because they have some big hitters. Our goal was just to continue to apply pressure. I think their second pitcher did a really good job of keeping us off balance. She got some routine ground outs. Those are things we need to be better with, but I think she did a good job of keeping them in the game.”

On being worried about putting Wichita State away:
“I'm not ever worried about this group. I let them do what they need to do. They're a better team than us saying 'let's just put them away.' You just can't. They're too good. I think a four seed is deceptive, if you look at that. They're not a typical four seed team. The first thing I said to our team in the locker room was 'that game made us better' because that's not a typical first game of the tournament for a three seed overall or a one seed in your own regional. I think they made us better.”

On Paige's effort in the fifth inning:
“Big sigh of relief. I think everyone had a big sigh of relief because they had their big hitters up. On top of that, a lot of their players are Oklahoma kids and that always brings a little bit of feistiness on their side. They had a good crowd tonight, so you could feel momentum. You could feel that they were about ready to do something. Paige [Parker] putting out that fire, to me, changed the dimension of the game towards us and we took a little momentum from that.”

On the opposing pitcher they face in the next game:
“We just take one pitcher at a time. We are not intimidated by any pitcher by any means. We're going to revisit our game plan. I think we always enjoy the opportunity to play an SEC team, so our team will be more settled, more grounded tomorrow.”

On being in the primetime television spot:
“Anytime we get an opportunity to be televised, it is critical for recruitment, showcasing our program, showcasing our facilities, so it's always something we take very much pride in. It's always kind of important to play well when you get that big opportunity and I think our team feels that. The worst part of today was waiting. That's the hardest part is sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting all day and watching other games on TV and wishing you were playing at that time. The fact that we're walking out of here at 10:30 and have to come back and play a relatively early game for a team that just finished late in the evening. The opportunity to be televised is big and we just try to take advantage of it.”

On Nicole Pendley's family and her homerun:
“I'm sure her family is enjoying it most definitely. There's more than one homerun hitter in the family.”

On NCAA's new rule for props:
“We are not a prop-style team. They enjoy and they create momentum without having to do those things. I'm an old-school, old-style coach that just loves the purity of the game and playing it for those reasons. If it's creating momentum for a team, and that's their style, that's their style. But it's more of a distraction from some great softball at times. For me, I'm OK with that rule.”

Sophomore Pitcher Paige Parker

On her performance tonight:
“Early in the innings [I had] a little early-inning jitters. As the game went on, I was just really working on executing the game plan. Lea [Wodach] and I, I thought, worked really well together tonight. Going after their hitters because they're a very good hitting team and very aggressive. Letting my defense work behind me because we have a fantastic defense. Trying to build every inning and get better every inning.”

On the importance of the first inning:
“Us coming out and scoring those five runs in the first inning was very important and Nicole [Pendley] came up really clutch. CC [Caleigh Clifton] drawing the walk and Erin [Miller] getting on early in the game is just really important and the more we can score early in the game, the better. It's a really great feeling as a pitcher to go out there the next inning and have those runs.”

On her pitching compared to the last time they played Wichita State:
“I think as the year has gone on, I've gotten better. I'm just building on every game and every inning and every pitch. Tonight, I felt pretty good. Like I said, they're a very good hitting team, so just going out and trying to throw my best game.”

On what pitch worked for her tonight:
“Whatever I thought, at that moment, at that time, would work the best. Coach [Melyssa] Lombardi had a great game plan in just going out and executing whatever pitch I needed to throw in that instance.”

On Wichita State making a comeback:
“Knowing that my defense is going to be there to back me up no matter what and just trying to get them to pop up or have a little ground ball. I really as determined to not let them score any more in that inning.”

Sophomore OF Nicole Pendley

On the first inning:
“All that was going through my mind was just to get a base hit, get an RBI and pass the bat to my teammate.”

On the importance of the first few bats of the first inning:
“I think all of us are just working to pick each other up. If one doesn't do it, we know the other one is going to get the job done.”

On how a new pitcher affects the game:
“I think just preparation all week played a big factor in it and just trusting what our plan was and executing what we were doing.”

On hitting critical homeruns:
“Just trying to get the job done and then looking for a base hit and whatever I get is nice I guess.”

Wichita State Head Coach Kristi Bredbenner

Opening statement:
“I thought our kids fought. Obviously, it's disappointing with the 7-2 loss, but [they] played hard against a tough team. You take away from a big first inning, and we're in that ballgame the whole time. I think we've got to reevaluate what we're going to do tomorrow starting pitching-wise and continue to keep fighting and moving up in the tournament and trying to get another shot on Sunday.”

On if the pitching surprised her:
“Probably not really. At the end of the day, Jenni [Brooks] keeps the ball down, gets the ground balls. I think we went off a little bit of Katie [Malone]'s mentality against OU last year when we played them. She pitched a great game against them. I think we don't make an error in that first inning right off the bat, we set the tone a little bit better. We make that play, it's a different inning. An experienced pitcher like Katie—she's a junior—she needs to be able to come back from that right away, but unfortunately, [Caleigh] Clifton's going to give us an out by bunting, and we walk her. That immediately became the Achilles' heel of the inning. The error hurt, but the walk right there kind of set the tone, and we ended up walking [Shay Knighten] and getting exactly what we need to: we got a ground ball. We got an out. You just have to be a little bit smarter. You're ahead on the count on [Nicole] Pendley and you call a rise ball. You can't throw it at the waist against a Sooner. She did a nice job of squaring up on that ball, and that's the end of the story. That's the ballgame right there. I thought Jenni, to her credit, did a great job. She's done a great job all year, and I think from a coach's perspective, we expected OU to sit a little bit more on her change-up. Her change-up really wasn't effective. It was the drop ball that really helped her today. Like I said, we'll kind of reevaluate what we're doing tomorrow and try to figure out who's going to be the best in the circle. I thought Jenni pitched the heck out of the ball and did a really good job of what we needed her to do.”

On what made the difference in hitting Paige Parker harder than in previous games:
“I think approach. We've watched a lot a video. We know kind of what she's going to throw, at least a little bit of a tendency that you've got to have a good game plan going against her. I thought she pitched better today, actually, than she did pitch against us the last time. But, we did not make her work for it the last time that we played them. Paige Luellen's first-inning walk was a huge at-bat, and I think it kind of showed that the more pitches we could make her throw, the more success we're going to have. I thought, for the most part, most of the girls stuck with their game plan, and that's what it's like in postseason against a very strong pitcher like Paige Parker. You have to have a game plan. It doesn't matter. You can't go in there free swinging. You have to have a pitch that you're looking for, and you have to stick with that pitch. I think for some of our girls that struggled a little bit tonight, they let their game plan go after the first strike was on them. You let your game plan go when you have two strikes on you. You've got to stick with your game plan until then. That's something that we've got to get better at as a team, but I thought we had some really great at-bats, and our seniors got up there and did a really nice job of putting something together. I think the big thing for us is we've got to play with no fear and take our hacks and we get a good pitch, we've got to try to hit it.”

On the quality of softball in the state of Oklahoma:
“Oklahoma has great softball—bottom line. You've got three Division I schools in the state that are all playing in postseason right now. We've got a lot of Oklahoma kids on our team. They've got great, great softball. We've got some Oklahoma kids coming in the next couple years. For whatever it is, the state of Oklahoma is a hotbed of softball. Obviously, California, Texas, they've got a lot of kids out there and they play a lot of softball, but Oklahoma's doing it right. They've been a good feeding ground for us to get some really great athletes.”

On a recent ruling from the NCAA limiting the use of props in the dugout:
“We're not into, I would say, props-props. We actually have a motto this year. John Gordon wrote a book, “The Hard Hat,” and well done is greater than well said, and we have hard hats. We had to keep them in our bags today. Normally, we'd have them out. They'll put them on for rally caps because they're actually construction helmets. That was the only thing that was kind of a downer. I get the goofy stuff that's going on—the fish, telephones on your head and stuff like that. Obviously, we want to be a respected sport, a sport just like anything else, but I do want our girls to have fun, too. So, I think it's fine in a balance. The props didn't hurt us, but we had to maybe keep an eye on our helmets in our bags instead of looking up and seeing them in the dugout. You know, it is what it is.”

Senior OF Brittany Fortner

On how getting the game under control after the first inning affects their mindset for the rest of the weekend:
“I think it's super important. This team has a lot of fight, and I think just showing that even though we got off to a rough start, we didn't quit, and that's important for the next couple games coming up. Hopefully, we hope to have more than just one more game, so if we get down, it doesn't matter. We know we can come back.”

On facing Paige Parker:
“She's a good pitcher. We don't see a lot of lefties, so that's definitely different. Her go-to is obviously her curveball, but I thought tonight, her change-up and her rise ball were effective. [They] keep you off balance by changing speed.”

Junior Pitcher Jenni Brooks

On what was working for her:
“My drop ball was working really well for me today. I really relied on that. Focus was trying to get as many groundballs as I could. I try to focus on using our defense as best as I can. I'm not a pitcher that gets a lot of strikeouts, so I really try to use my defense and get as many groundballs as possible. My drop ball was really working for me today. [My] change-up wasn't as consistent as I would have liked it to be, but eventually, it came through, but my drop ball was my main focus today, and it worked really well for me.”

On what it was like stepping in to calm the game down:
“I expected myself to be a lot more anxious and nervous than I was. I came into the game and was really calm. I try to stay as relaxed as possible and don't want show the other team that I'm nervous, so I just tried to work on throwing my pitches and hitting my spots and using my defense and getting out of any situation I got myself into.”