Diane Ninemire Quotations

We're going to have to get our bats alive like we did against UNLV. We've got to have the same kind of attitude we did in that game and jump on (Sacramento State) early.

We're playing pretty good ball right now. We're fielding around 98 percent and hitting really well. Overall, we're headed in the right direction.

We've talked about how important it is to stay focused for games during the week. We're going to have to have the same kind of attitude like we did (at the UNLV tournament).

I felt like we came out much more aggressive than we have been at the plate. We were swinging at first pitches in occasions and I thought our offense really started putting it together.

We looked at too many strikes and just didn't have the pitch selection (on Wednesday). Against Sacramento, we've got to swing at our own strikes and not the pitcher's strikes. We've got to be willing to swing the bats. If we do, we'll be fine.

Haley is hitting a home run almost every game it seems like. Everyone else was producing this weekend too. I'm very pleased with the fact that different people are coming through at different times.

Kelly just had more success against Arizona. I was trying to match up the best pitcher against the type of team that we were facing that day, so I decided to start Kelly.

Lauren really showed us glimpses of the pitcher that she can be. If we can expect this kind of performance from now on, it would be huge to know that we have two pitchers capable of throwing against any team in the country.

(Lauren) gave up a lot of runs in the last few innings. But she hung in there at the end when she needed to. Her back was against the wall, but she came up with the strikeouts and got us out of it.

Kristina did great and our defense was good, but our hitting was just disappointing. We had eight hits but they were scattered through seven innings. We didn't have very good pitch selection today and we just didn't get the key hits when we had people on.

I think everything is coming together for us right now. We've got multiple hitters hitting over .400 for us so far. At this point in the season, we're hitting as well as ever.

Our team is way too good to be having two or three errors in a game. We should have just three or four for an entire tournament. Our goal is always to play errorless softball and I'm hoping that the things we did this week in practice will make that happen.

That was nice to see how we matched up against a top national team that trains from seven in the morning to 11 at night, six days a week. For us to play the way we did is a good sign of how things are going.

Three home runs. I've never seen that as a coach or player in my career.

We need (Lauren) going down the stretch, especially with the four games this weekend.

We have nothing to be ashamed of. That was an incredible battle between two teams who didn't want to go home, and we gave it everything we had.

We are disappointed. It was just two teams that didn't want their seasons to end, and I think that's why it went on for so long.

We didn't shut the door against Sac State when we should have. But Kristina threw very well, and that was big for us.

We'll still be trying to get a feel for things this weekend. We worked on a lot of our communication problems in practice. I think we're getting closer to a starting lineup, but this time we're going to see better competition-we're going to see if we can do the same things we did right last weekend against better teams.

We've definitely got to bring our 'A' game this weekend. There's not much difference in the teams we're going to play from here on out. Most of them are ranked in the top-10.

This was a great opportunity for our kids to get a new kind of exposure. Some of our kids won't get to play in the Olympics, so it was a really unique chance for us to see how we match up against a top national team.

We should have been out of there in five. We just weren't focused and I was disappointed by the effort. We talked about how important it was to stay focused for games during the week and we just didn't get that kind of effort for whatever reason.

I've challenged the team to make sure in the future when we have leads that we don't let another team back in the game.

It's going to be a learning curve. We've got to roll with the punches. We are going to get better and learn from our mistakes, but I think our offense is really sound and we have speed and power. We don't have a lot of flashy players, but we've got a lot of workhorses, and now they have to believe in their roles and stick to our plan.

It's necessary that we go out and win a lot of games from this point on. Whether we get three out of four or we sweep this weekend, we just have to play every game like it's a championship game from now on.

If she can be consistent and eventually get to the point where she can go seven innings if need be, it would be tremendous to have two pitchers capable of throwing against any team in the country. There aren't many teams better than the one she faced (last weekend).

You couldn't ask for a better scenario. That's what we told the team today, that we needed to capitalize on every opportunity and we just found a way to get the job done.