NCAA Super Regional Championships: Pre-Tournament Press Conference
5/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Softball
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2006 NCAA Super Regional |
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2006 NCAA Softball Championships
Tuscaloosa Super Regional
Pre-Tournament Press Conference Quotes
May 25, 2006
Head Coach Patrick Murphy, University of Alabama
“We’re really excited to have Stanford here. A PAC 10 school, as most everybody knows, they’re the top in the nation in softball in that conference every year, so it’s going to be a real difficult series and I just expect them to play their best and hopefully we’ll do the same.”
On Alabama’s play in last weekend’s NCAA Regional:
“I thought going into the SEC Tournament that there was a little lull since we’d won the regular season for the first time. There wasn’t a sense of urgency. But then last weekend I thought we got it back. The offense was great, the defense was outstanding. If we can play defense and pitch we can play with anybody and hopefully it will be the same way this weekend.”
Staci Ramsey, University of Alabama
On whether or not it is “intimidating” to play a PAC 10 team:
“No. It seems like the past couple of years it’s been the PAC 10 and the SEC and Michigan winning last year. The game has changed so much that it’s just not as intimidating as it has been in the past. I think with Michigan winning last year it made people realize that anybody can be beat and anybody can win. So I just think it’s a different attitude that everybody has.”
“We’re really excited to be at home. Having our fans behind us is a really big deal for us. And for us to be able to host the first Super Regional and all the accomplishments that we’ve had is really overwhelming. Right now we’re just excited to play. We’re ready to go out there and take care of business.
Head Coach John Rittman, Stanford
“I’m very proud of our team to get to this part of the tournament, the Super Regionals. All year long we’ve worked very hard to get to this point and certainly would like to get past this point. This is where we ended our season last year, at Super Regionals against a very good team in Tennessee and a good pitcher in Monica Abbott. So we know we have our work cut out for us this weekend at Alabama with a very well-coached team with some senior leadership??really a complete team when you look at their lineup and their pitching staff. And we know they are going to be well-coached, but I think our team is ready. We had to battle last week at Fresno State against three very good teams in Conference USA champion Tulsa, Fresno State and Cal State Fullerton. We had a little adversity and lost a game and had to come back the hard way and win two which is never easy on the road in a tough environment at Fresno with their fans and their crowd. I think we can take a lot of that momentum into this weekend, again playing on the road against a very good program. So we’re looking forward to competing this weekend.”
Lauren Lappin, Stanford
On quick turnaround between the Regional and Super Regional and cross country trip to Tuscaloosa:
“It was a tough weekend, like Coach said. We had some quality opponents and our backs against the wall and had to fight back and had to win three games in a row. I think it prepared us mentally because in a best of three series, somebody’s going to get a loss on Friday night and someone is going to have the opportunity to fight back and win a couple of games. Hopefully we won’t get ourselves in that position but I think that it prepared us physically and mentally for the grind that we are going to have to go through this weekend, and, if we’re successful this weekend, next weekend at the World Series. As far as travel goes, someone has to travel across the country. And I think we’re ready. We like to go on the road, spend some quality team bonding time on the plane and in the airport. It was a long day of traveling yesterday, but we got out here and got our legs moving and we’re ready to compete tomorrow night."
