May 9, 2013
South Carolina Head Coach Beverly Smith
Opening statement …
“I thought it was a great game tonight. Julie (Sarratt) certainly did an excellent job keeping a tough Kentucky offense down. I am really proud of the team and the way we battled. I thought we had some really good at-bats and were able to put some really good hits together. Chelsea Hawkins obviously had a big home run, but I thought it was a great game tonight, and certainly for the viewers on ESPNU it was exciting to watch.”
On Julie Sarratt’s performance …
“Well, you asked if it was one of her better performances and I think what you are seeing from Julie (Sarratt) is her performances keep getting better and better as the season goes on. Certainly she pitched better tonight against Kentucky than she did when Kentucky was in Columbia. But, we are seeing a Julie Sarratt that keeps getting better. She was out last year with Tommy John and so after a year off, we are looking to see the gradual climb. She is where we want her to be as we close in here on postseason.”
On how she prepared her team for Kelsey Nunley …
“(Kelsey) Nunley is tough. She is very impressive. We just got prepared to get jammed inside and we worked hard on that over the last few days. Our plan was to just to expect it in. We were trying to give ourselves a chance to hit that pitch. I thought our girls did a nice job of battling that inside pitch. But, she is an impressive pitcher and she is going to have a great career here.”
South Carolina Pitcher #23 Julie Sarratt
On how she felt about her performance …
“The whole mentality of the game was to keep them off balance. Coach called pitches and looked at each batter. She saw what their tendencies were and used the change-up effectively. They are a good hitting team, so you have to keep them off balance.”
On being in the zone …
“I am really a calm person, so this is my game. The defense behind me was awesome and we scored runs as well. You can’t really ask for more. I wanted to shut them out the last inning, but it happens. They are a good hitting team, but the defense had my back.”
Kentucky Head Coach Rachel Lawson
Opening Statement …
“First, I would like to thank the SEC and the University of Kentucky for putting on this venue right now. I think the SEC is a special tournament because all the teams who come here, all 10 of them are exceptional teams. I expect most of us are going to be in the postseason, if not all of us. I think it’s a great venue and barring the rain everything else has turned out really nice, both from the SEC side and from our side.”
On the bats being silent through the middle portion of the game …
“Their pitcher, (Julie) Sarratt, I think she did a good job. She was pitching three different speeds, and I didn’t think that we were really on time for any of them. I thought we made a nice adjustment late in the game, but after they had scored so many runs I think it was a little bit too late. I thought she did a great job of keeping us off balance. And I think up until the latter innings we had only hit one ball square, and then I think we did obviously in the seventh, but they had too big of a lead by then.”
On how South Carolina handled Kelsey Nunley …
“I thought they had a good game plan. I thought they did a good job with that. Really they had one inning, she had two walks so that kind of hurt her a little bit and then they had a hit. Well, actually, she had a walk and then we had a miscue on a bunt so we went to second and they were safe there and then we made another error in that inning so it got out of hand. After that I believe she was only three batters over so I think she had a decent outing, I wouldn’t say it was her best outing, but I thought she did a nice job for most of the game. I just think that one inning things got out of hand and that one homerun was just a missed pitch. I thought the girl did a good job of capitalizing on the changeup.”
On if the delay had an impact on the game …
“No, not at all. I think South Carolina came out, I think they had a good game plan, I thought they were motivated, they did a great job from the get go, swinging. I think Kelsey shut them down for a little while but I think they got on time and started hitting the ball well and once they got such a big lead our batters started to press. I don’t think the delay had anything to do with it.”
On how the team bounces back for regionals …
“I think, well tomorrow, we need a day off. Tomorrow we’ll take off and hopefully watch some of the other teams who are playing. I think, obviously we have good pitching, we have won a lot of big games. Offensively I think we are going to have to do a little bit better of a job of mixing things up and changing our approach a bit. By now, we have good game plans, I just don’t think we executed them well this weekend so I think we just need a day off and then we can figure out who we are going to play and then we need to attack them like we have the entire season. We have a lot of big wins, so I think we have a lot of experience going into the postseason it’s just a matter of if it’s a good matchup for us or not.”
Kentucky Pitcher #33 Kelsey Nunley
On USC having four runs in an inning …
“Well, I just didn’t kind of really feel myself. A couple pitches didn’t go exactly where I wanted them too. They’re good hitters, anybody in the SEC is. I don’t know. I just didn’t feel myself.”
On what happened when USC made runs …
“It could’ve been jitters. It could’ve been playing in the SEC tournament in the first time. It could’ve been really anything or it could’ve been my mind.”
On if the delay had an impact …
“Maybe. I mean it is kind of late, but we should’ve played harder than we did.”
On moving forward …
“We can only learn from this. We’re a young team, above 50 percent of us are underclassmen. So, I think we’re just going to learn from it and move on.
