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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 4, 2016Emily CarosoneKasey CooperTiffany HowardClint MyersJade RhodesOklahoma City, Oklahoma Auburn - 4, Georgia - 3 THE MODERATOR: At this time we have Auburn University on the podium. We'll get general comments from Coach about the exciting game. CLINT MYERS: It was a hell of a game. We're very excited. You know, it puts us in a great place. I'm really proud of the fight, the never quit. They stayed in the ballgame, and they beat a very, very good Georgia team. Yeah, the pitching was phenomenal. The hitting was timely, and good baserunning. So I mean, the little things that we talk about that Auburn has to do in order to win, we did tonight. We made a few mistakes, but hey, great teams figure out ways to win, and they did tonight, and I'm very, very proud of all of them. Q. Clint, what was the explanation you were given on that play that I think confused all of us there at the top of the seventh? CLINT MYERS: We got a little excited and kind of wandered off first base, and that's illegal. In the excitement, the run counted; that was the most important thing, because Jade did a phenomenal job. I mean, with two strikes, putting the ball in play, scoring Coop, huge at-bat. Huge at-bat. I mean, again, you're going to get a little excited, and that's all it was. Q. Emily, you've got to explain that baserunning. Looked like a little Barry Sanders, a little Nick Marshall. What was going on? EMILY CAROSONE: We tied the game up and Cooper was at third base, Jade was up to bat. I knew if the ball went to the second baseman, which was Hugo, if I could get her to hesitate just for a second, Jade could be safe and Cooper could score, and I even told Cooper before, I said, if that ball is hit to Hugo, I'm getting her to try and tag me. I was willing to say, hey, hey, hey, right here, right here. I was going to get her to come after me so Jade could be safe and Cooper could score, because Cooper's run is what mattered. Q. Kasey, I was going to say you guys made it to the semis, and it's a lot easier than last year not going to the loser's bracket, but that wasn't easy at all, was it? KASEY COOPER: No, it's the SEC and you never know what you are going to get. It's going to be a great ballgame and you know both teams are not going to give up. We gave the most fight we've seen in a long time and we can pull from past experience, because last time we faced Georgia we had a walk off and we had two one-run games. We just had to keep fighting. One at-bat at a time. We just kept putting the pressure on them. We started getting ground balls, and we put the pressure on Georgia's defense. Q. You're one win away from the championship series. What's that like? TIFFANY HOWARD: I'm pumped. I'm so excited. Just to think if we just win three more games -- it's mindblowing, so I'm just excited. EMILY CAROSONE: It's just one game at a time. Nothing changes. We're playing Auburn softball no matter if it's the winner or the loser's bracket, the championship, we're playing Auburn softball, and that's what we came to do. KASEY COOPER: Our goal was just to dream with a deadline, and so our deadline is three more days, and we almost made is it, so our goal is still attainable, and we aren't stopping until we attain our goal. JADE RHODES: Just like Emily said, another game. They have to come out, the pressure is not on us anymore. They have to come out and beat us twice. Just take that pitch by pitch, inning by winning, and just play Auburn softball. Q. Tiffany, you guys have been in some really crazy games over the last two years, and really for anybody that's up there, where does this rank among the crazy dramatics that this team has been come to be known for? TIFFANY HOWARD: It's in the top. I wouldn't say it's the top one, but it's definitely up there with the top, and I just think what gets us through those close games is our energy in the dugout and just believing in one another and just getting on base so other people can hit us in. Q. Jade, if you could talk about the excitement that you experienced at first base that maybe led to you getting off the bag, and did you even realize that it had happened? JADE RHODES: Not really, because you know, when I was up to bat, I just look at Emily and look at Coop, and I look at Emily and we just have this connection where we look at each other, and I'm like, I've got to get on for Emily. No matter what I do, if I'm fouling pitches off, anything, just getting on or getting the ball in play to score Cooper, and yeah, like my excitement got to me, but then I have to realize like the run did count, so even though my excitement got to me, I can't let myself get down, so I had to go back on defense and we had to finish it strong. Q. Did your heart sink, though, for a moment when you thought maybe the run wouldn't count? JADE RHODES: It did. I did kind of like throw my hands on my helmet, like oh my gosh, what did I just do. But when I did realize that the run counted, my teammates had to gather me and say, look, we just need three outs from you. We had to have solid defense. Our infield needed to keep the ball in the field, in the dirt, so they will not score, because we know that our defense is solid, and if we can just get three outs then we've got them. Q. Coach, was there ever a point in time where you thought rightly or wrongly they were going to try and take the run off the board? CLINT MYERS: No. I mean, it's -- Jade was safe. That was a clear call, all right. Run scored. I mean, the umpires know the rules. They're really good at that. Never a doubt. Q. Coach, can you talk about the relief performance from Rachael? CLINT MYERS: Oh, she's not here. Again, Corey had a plan, and it was to let them go through, and if you noticed, you saw Mak run down there because it was going to be kind of down early, then up, and then finish with down. But Rachael was throwing the ball great. And again, Corey has been a maestro out there working with these pitchers, and coming up with plans and making pitch calls. He's on a great wavelength with them, and there is so much trust in what he's saying, that they're going out there and just executing his plan, and they've been phenomenal. Q. Coach, Chelsea Wilkinson pitched a heck of a game. Talk about the timely hitting, and what did your team do as adjustments and you guys as batters, what did you do to adjust to Chelsea's pitching? EMILY CAROSONE: I think two things kept us in the game. It was our pitching to holding them down and then Victoria Draper stepping up making some of those great catches in the outfield and getting on base in that last seventh inning. Without Victoria getting on the top of the order comes um with one out and that situation doesn't happen again. It's crazy to see that even the bottom of our lineup gets us through games and wins games for us. KASEY COOPER: It puts more pressure on the defense and the pitcher when you have a runner on first with nobody out. You are going to pitch differently. You've got speed on first, Vic is our fastest runner that we got and Tiff is the next. So you've got speed on speed, and our lineup was just to keep hitting ground balls and putting the pressure on defense, pick your pitch, put your best swing on it and have a quality at-bat. If this was your last at-bat, how would you want to go down? And that's how we approached it. And for us we were all about fight and we're all a relentless attitude, and I couldn't be more proud of this team right now. Q. Emily, were you surprised that they pitched to you with first base open? And second, did you say anything to your teammates before y'all went out for that last inning? EMILY CAROSONE: I was surprised they pitched to Cooper. They usually try to pitch around Cooper to get to me, and I mean, if you're going to do that you're pitching around somebody that's batting .400 to get to another person that's batting .400. But my bat before that I popped it up so I knew my dropped my hands a little bit. Me and Cooper had it easy. We just had to get hits because the runners were already in scoring position. All we had to do was barrel the ball and get those runners in, and Cooper got the first one in, and then I got the tying one in, so it was just a team effort. It was just great all around. Q. Clint, I'm curious, maybe if you could just talk philosophically for a second, I just wondered what enables a team to -- you're down two runs in the final inning; what is it about the makeup of a team that enables you to not give up? Is that something that you can somehow instill and engrain in a team? Are those intangibles? Are those tangibles? There's teams that rise to the occasion in difficult moments like that in the World Series and there's teams that for whatever reason aren't able to have it. CLINT MYERS: I think the answer is yes to all of your questions. I think it's something that it goes and starts when you first come together and you put an expectation and you believe in each other. You heard what they were saying, I was doing it for her, I was doing it for us, and I knew what I had to do, and it was just -- we have kind of a term, pass the baton, and again, if one doesn't get it done, the next one will. This team has had great fight all year long. I mean, we've had a couple bumps in the road, and we've been behind before. But they never quit. As long as they've got a breath, they never quit. And again, that's just a competitive nature. That's playing with a great heart. That's playing with total confidence, and again, there's so many little tangible things that you could say, to answer your question, but basically these young ladies are winners, and again, they're doing what winners do. They compete. You know, they're pulling for each other. They've got each other's backs. And again, it's just what we talk about when we first come together. These are the things that we've got to do. These are the things that we practice. And they take total trust into their preparation. I mean, that's one of two ways to get confidence. Yeah, you saw that seventh inning. You saw the confidence in their face, in their eyes, and should have felt it in the dugout. It was phenomenal. They knew. They weren't trying, they knew that they were going to score and win that ballgame. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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