May 15, 2015
South Carolina Head Coach Beverly Smith
Opening Statement:
“That was a tough game. We certainly wanted a better result game one, but I tell you our team will get refocused and be ready to come back and play tomorrow. It was a great pitching performance and certainly a duel on the mound. Both teams had really good pitching and for us to be successful we’re going to have to play better defense. Offensively, I thought our team put ourselves in a position to score early, we just weren’t able to capitalize. In the seventh, our offense came alive for us but it was just too little, too late.”
On leaving runners stranded throughout the game:
“We left ten [batters] on. Their pitching staff is excellent. Both of those pitchers (Mackenzie Audas and Shelby Turnier) are sub-1.00 [ERA] for a reason. They did a nice job. Audas kept us off balance with the changeup early, and Turnier came in and certainly did a nice job punching that outside corner. We were just one hit away from being able to capitalize.”
Alaynie Page, Jr., LF
On her seventh-inning double that led to South Carolina’s only run:
“I wanted to end that game with a fight, whether we won or lost, I wanted our team to fight. My leadoff role has been pretty big this year, and I wanted to get our offense going. We really hadn’t done much – we’d left runners stranded a lot and we needed those clutch hits. I wanted to start it off right so we could fight.”
