Completed Event: Baseball versus #16 Alabama on April 3, 2026 , Win , 4, to, 2
Final
Baseball
4
vs #16 Alabama
2
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University of Oklahoma Athletics
NCAA Softball Regional Media Day: Tulsa
Tulsa Head Coach John Bargfeldt
Opening statement:
“I think this is my fifth trip here and it is always exciting to obviously make it into the NCAA tournament. This is a great venue for us just from our fan standpoint, excellent facilities, and so we just enjoy being here.”
On how he sizes up Ole Miss:
“A solid team that can beat any team in the country. They can play with the best, and so we know that we have our work cut out for us in terms of making sure that we are coming out with the best that we have to offer. Any time that they go through the schedule that they have in the conference that they have, you know that they are going to be a formidable opponent, for sure. “
On the evolution of the pitching staff:
“In the beginning of the season they were lights out. Both Caitlin (Sill) and Emily (Watson), as we were going around the country people were coming up to me and saying ‘Boy, it looks like you have co-aces,’ and that’s exactly the way that they are pitching. Then once we got into conference play a couple of weeks, we went into a little bit of a slump. I think our pitchers were trying to be too perfect, trying to not miss their spots and they became a little bit too tentative in that regard. They started giving up some home runs, started giving up some walks, started changing our strikeout-to-walk ratio a little bit. We talked about how as an entire team we felt like everybody was trying to be too perfect. The defense was trying to be too perfect; the hitters were trying to be too perfect, and that isn’t the way to play. We kind of rededicated ourselves and talked about how we were just going out to play to win. We’re going to pay attention to the process and what it takes to be a winning team, and that is to win the phases of the game. We need to trust each other. We need to trust our defense to do their job, we need to trust our hitters to do their job, and then the pitchers need to have that feeling that people have their backs. When we started doing that again, we started to pitch and play a lot better for sure.”
On how good Caitlin Sill is pitching right now:
“Judging from her last three or four appearances, she’s been as good as she’s been all year. She got back to being the type of player that we saw at the beginning of this year and at the end of last year. I kind of describe her as more of a Greg Maddux-type pitcher. She’s got movement, she’s got location, she’s changing speeds and it just makes for uncomfortable at-bats. She’s getting a lot of soft contact that you know she’s right. That’s kind of what’s happened, especially through our conference tournament and even a couple of games before.”
On the Ole Miss pitching staff:
“I think they rely on one of their pitchers that I feel like is a similar pitcher to what we faced a lot this year. But that being said, any time you’ve never faced a pitcher, you just don’t have that book on that movement or that speed or that deception that they’re going to bring to it. I think when you come in and you look at their stats you pretty much figure out who you are going to see. Television helps a lot in that now that there’s a lot more games on television and you can at least see maybe the type of movement, what type of pitches they finish with. But at the same time, getting in the box and facing them, there’s nothing that compares to that.”
Tulsa Pitcher Caitlin Sill
On if she played at this stadium being from Tuttle, Okla.:
“I know when I was a senior in high school I came and watched Tulsa play OU in the regional. We didn’t play a whole lot here, but I played at the (ASA) Hall of Fame (Stadium) and I played at Remington Park. We played many tournaments over there. This is home.”
On if she followed Oklahoma growing up:
“I did, just as any girl who follows softball.”
On if Oklahoma recruited her:
“No. I committed to Tulsa as a sophomore.”
On if there is any motivation possibly playing Oklahoma:
“No, I am focused on Ole Miss right now. For me, I just want to win for my team. I want to come out of Regionals and go to a Super. I want it for my teammates and for my coach.”
On her coach’s assessment of her pitching:
“I think it is always cool when someone compared you to one of the greats. I think I got back to, like he (Coach Bargfeldt) said, instead of trying to do it all, I went out there and just trusted my teammates. I tried to not let anything faze me, hit my spots, change speeds often. I think I got away from that a little bit in the middle of the season and I just got back to it. Especially trusting my slower stuff.”
On if she expects a lot of friends and family to be in attendance:
“I do. It’s exciting. One of my friends that I went to high school with was working the t-shirt booth at OU.”
On the team’s confidence right now:
“I think it is almost at an all-time high. We obviously went through that lull right in the middle of the season and we’re coming out of it right at the right time. I think we can carry that through this Regional and hopefully go get some wins.”
On what is different between the team in the slump and the team now:
“I think at the beginning of the season we were kind of the underdogs and we went out there just having something to prove. Then we got to where we felt like we had the target on our backs and we wanted to keep it that way. I think we are back to how we started the season of going out there with a fight and going out there to prove we can hang with the best.”
