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NCAA WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIESJune 1, 2019Chelsea AlexanderCheyenne FactorKenny GajewskiMadi Sue MontgomerySamantha ShowOklahoma City, Oklahomaa Washington-1, Oklahoma State-0 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the Oklahoma State Cowgirls. Samantha and Madi Sue, talk about the sense of pride that you had in helping lead this team back to prominence and the ultimate stage as a senior. SAMANTHA SHOW: That's been my goal all along when I first stepped foot here, knowing what they have been doing the past three years, what they needed from me. I couldn't be prouder of this team, what we've done, how we've shown the whole softball world we're a top-tier softball program. Getting here and showing people we don't just let up easy, like we're going to fight. That's exactly what this program is about. We're hard-working kids. They're going to do big things next year. MADI SUE MONTGOMERY: I know when Taylor (Lynch) and I chose to come here, we wanted to make a difference. I know the coaching staff we got was just a blessing. They just knew how to lead us this far. I can't wait to see what people like Cheyenne Factor and Kiley Naomi can take off from where we left it off. I'm extremely proud of our team. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Madi Sue, how are you feeling after this game, the future of this program? MADI SUE MONTGOMERY: I think they're in great hands. Like I said, our coaching staff is a blessing. What they do is really awesome. Then the kids that we have here are crazy good. I can't wait to watch the show they put on, not even just the freshmen, the sophomores and juniors that are left, too, they're really good. I hope they embrace that freshman class that comes in, lead them, show them what Oklahoma State softball is all about. Q. Cheyenne, talk about your experience here, what you were able to learn? CHEYENNE FACTOR: Yeah, the World Series, this was an awesome experience. I was glad to be here with them, this team. The seniors, I couldn't ask for a better senior class. They led us all season long. They do it right. Q. Sam, talk about what this season has meant to you. SAMANTHA SHOW: Big thing for me that I've grown as a person here. Building relationships is something that I've struggled with. Coming here I've never had so many friends on my side, friends that actually supported me. That's how I've grown personally. Softball-wise, this was the most fun year of softball that I've ever had. I'm so happy it was my last year, and I get to end it here at the World Series with these people by my side. I'm so excited to see what they do next year. I'm going to be around helping with the team. Definitely going to take the experience that I have. These younger girls, they're going to show out in Big 12. We're not going to be taken lightly next year either. This experience they got here is going to help them for their following years. We're not going to fall under the radar again, we're going to be known for a long time. Q. Coach talks a lot about how he embraced the history of this program when he took over. Has it sunk in what you all have done this year, an historic team? MADI SUE MONTGOMERY: I mean, making it here was a dream come true. I got to give it to our seniors that started when I was a freshman. They did a great job of starting that for us, starting that foundation. Taylor and I could just build on that. Obviously, the history of our program is huge to us. Coach G did a good job of putting that in front of us so we could embrace and understand it. That way we understand where we come from. The people before us didn't even have a softball field. I thank them for giving us what we have now. Q. Chelsea, you've had two years back-to-back with learning from players. What have you learned from players that will help this team in the future? CHELSEA ALEXANDER: I've been around some big-time players. Vanessa, our seniors this year, all of them, we're all made for big moments. Just seeing how they keep their composure, just stay levelheaded, that's what I've learned the most. To perform at this level, you just got to take a deep breath and believe you're meant to be here. I think they've all played with a lot of confidence. That's what I've learned from them. Q. Sam, your impact on your team and the game has been felt this season. What does that mean to you? What do you think that means for young women and girls who look up to you? SAMANTHA SHOW: Even when I first got into college softball, Coach Evans' big thing was legacy. I didn't know exactly what that was for me my first couple years. I didn't know how to have an impact on my teammates and softball in general. Being here and actually getting to be myself has allowed me to leave a legacy to be yourself. That's when you're going to be the happiest and when you're going to be able to play your best. That was my biggest thing this year. I just wanted to be happy, wanted to be myself, and I wanted to love softball. I got to do that here. I think the softball world got to see that. Hopefully the younger generations, women in general, need to understand that you have to be yourself and you have to be happy. No matter what the situation is, if you have to make a hard change, do it. It's scary. You never know. But it's going to work out in the long run. If that's my legacy, then I did my job. Q. Except for Sam, sometimes you have a transfer come in for one year. Sometimes to see y'all out there, it seems like you've been together your whole careers. Talk about when she came in, how you meshed together. MADI SUE MONTGOMERY: Our coaches and seniors did a great job of trying to let our teammates know as soon as we embrace the people that come in, the better off we're going to be. I think we did a great job of getting people to understand where they're coming from, embrace their personalities, let us all be great friends, take off from there. We have a lot of trust in each other. I think that came early, which is lucky for us. I just think as soon as we embraced each other, got past that, we were pretty good. CHEYENNE FACTOR: I was kind of in the same position, transfer as a freshman coming in. I'm new as they are. Just listened to the older girls. We all meshed together eventually, I guess. CHELSEA ALEXANDER: Like Sue said: trust. I think it starts trusting the coaches and trusting who they're recruiting and bringing in. Coach is about bringing in good people. I think he knows when he's recruiting and bringing them in whether they're going to fit in. I think we just trust our coaching staff that they're recruiting good people, good players. Then it just comes in to welcoming them with open arms. We're For the Girls this year, that was our big thing, FTG. On and off the field we bonded really fast. Q. Chelsea, coming from a small school, this weekend shows no matter where you come from, you can still make it? CHELSEA ALEXANDER: It's really neat to see. I grew up playing state games on this field, in this complex. We played tournaments here. It's always been like a home field to me. But it changes during this week. Coach G has talked about that. Even though we grew up around here, it's different. And it is. It's been really cool to see people from back home reaching out. I love to represent my school, my hometown. It's a big deal to me. Just inspiring those little girls to keep going after it. Whatever they want, they can do it if they just work hard. It was good to come home and play in front of them. I had a lot of people out. It's unbelievable. Incredible feeling in knowing that people are looking up to you and I can be an example to them. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you very much. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Is it going to take some time for everything you accomplished this season to sink in, enjoy what you did this year? KENNY GAJEWSKI: Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. When I was part of Tim's staff, we won those titles, I don't know, you just don't know when that stuff is going to sink in. I don't know if it will be a day or two, a month or two. Actually, this year I've watched a lot more video than I've ever watched. I've been able to kind of relive a lot of things, good and bad. I don't think I'll go back and watch this game here. I've really tried to enjoy this whole year the whole time. I feel like we got some really cool kids. It's taken us time to mold this thing kind of the way we would like to see it work. Doesn't always go that way. Sometimes it takes you to places you never thought you would go to. I don't know. I'm not going to force that. I'm going to go back here with my family, my staff, really enjoy them, enjoy that. Like I told these girls inside there, you need to go back and see your families, that kind of stuff, but you really need to get with your teammates because it will never be the same again. We'll never all be in the same place again. That would be like a rarity in this type of stuff. There's always somebody who can't come back, somebody who gets lost. I'm just going to let it happen. You want to hold onto things as long as you can. I'm super thankful for these kids and the journey they took us on. Q. Talk about what you've seen out of Cheyenne this year. KENNY GAJEWSKI: It's special, special freshman. Shy is a kid that is just not afraid of the big moment. Lives for it, to be honest. Probably as cool a cat as we've got. The moment never seems to faze her. That's the way she acts. That's the way she prepares. That's the way she goes about her stuff. It's cool to see her evolve. I told her in there, I gave her a big hug, I just said, That's the first one. Just try to remind these young kids how fast they go. You'll look up and all of a sudden it will be the second one is done, you're halfway down, you're on the downhill. I talk to a lot of these kids here today just individually, just kind of do our normal stuff, tell them how happy you are for them, how proud. I think anybody likes to hear that. Thank them. None of you probably ever get the opportunity to drive through the bus gate where Coach Mack is out there at the bus gate. Coach Mack gets on the bus for I think probably every team, but he got on our bus here today, gave our girl as great talk. One of the things he talked about was gratitude. I think that goes for all of us. I just wanted to thank our kids all day today just for what they do for us, what they do for our school, how they represent us. It's pretty school. Shy is one of those kids that represents us right in the classroom. She kills it in school. Her life, she has a good life, but it's been hard. She's had to grind her whole life. It's cool to see kids like that just fight. Q. Another solid pitching performance from Sam. What did you see from her tonight? KENNY GAJEWSKI: One of my favorite words when we came here my first year, I talked to our kids about guts. Guts, very few people really understand what it's like to have guts, man. To go out there and just pour it out there. I've got to coach and be around a lot of kids. I think about a couple in this tournament. Amanda Lorenz is a kid that plays with guts, man. She will leave it all out there. I never got to coach her, I got to recruit her. I wish I had a year to coach her just to learn. I got the treat to coach Sam. Sam has guts, man. She is truly a kid who's willing to lose a game. She's willing to be out there to lose a game. I say this a lot. There's a lot of kids who think they're willing to win a game. Who is not? There ain't a lot of kids out there that go out there and say, I want the ball no matter what. Three days in a row, throw it tomorrow, too. She came up and said, I'm ready. She just wants to be in that moment. She wants to help her team. It's not about her. Times it can look likes it's been about her. It's never been about her one time. She truly has guts. Q. As tight of a pitcher's duel as that was, when the one run crossed the plate, did you cross your mind that might be the only one? KENNY GAJEWSKI: It kind of concerned me. I'm not going to lie. I figured maybe the first team to score tonight after the first couple innings, first team to score here, this might be all it takes. I think every one of my kids is going to get a hit every time they walk up there. Chey comes up there. She's had a couple big home runs. I'm thinking, might as well just go ahead and hit one more. Richbourg, Show. Bayless hasn't been swinging it as well as she'd like to. She's capable. Madi Sue had a great one at her last at-bat. What an at-bat for her to go down with. It's just who she is. Yeah, it was one of those games. Whoever scored first had the best chance to really win this game. Q. We talked a lot about the things that Sam brought to this team for this year. What are some of the things she brought that will continue on? KENNY GAJEWSKI: I've been asked this question, I don't remember who it was, but, How do you carry this on? How do you bottle this up, keep this going? Well, I feel like we've done things right here. We built a program to be sustainable, you know what I mean, to be long-lasting, that with do this. One of the ways you do it is you kind of beg and pry and ask these kids to stay around and get a masters. Madi Sue and Sam are going to do that. Bayless will be here because she's going to finish her masters, too. You keep these kids around here because they have a tremendous amount of pride and a tremendous amount of investment in this program. One of the cool things as I look back, this week I've tried to reflect some, one of the coolest things I've seen in our time here is our girls don't want to leave. When I got here, they didn't want to stay. That's kind of cool. They didn't want to stay. They weren't having fun. That's sad. I feel bad. My first team one that we had, they're not team one obviously in our history, but they're kind of our staff's team one. We call our teams by that. This is team four. Team one, those kids, man, when we kind of dropped the deadweight, it's amazing. Some of those kids who were having a miserable experience here at OSU, how that can happen I don't know. Nobody's fault, but things happen. Get some bad seeds. Just part of every program's history. To see what these kids have done, to see them now wanting to come back, it's crazy. I think it just tells you the type of people that we've got. I have an administration that's letting me grow my program and my staff, which is what you've got to do. You got to open up opportunity for these kids to stay around and be able to give back. They work their tails off as a graduate manager. It's hard work. It's not easy. They want to give back. That's the culture and mentality here. We're going to try to capture that by keeping them around. It's crazy how many of my kids who are already signed, kids that will start school here in about four or five days, moving in. We get no break, which is fine. I'd rather have it like this every single year. I've got six kids that are moving in in four days. Every one of those kids has said, ‘Man, I wish I could have played with Show.’ I'm like, ‘Man, you do. She has a lot to offer.’ The good thing is she'll be back. She's going to be a heck of a coach. She really understands this game. As she grows and her relationship skills grow, she'll be a head coach in this game fast, I mean fast. She's a kid that's going to walk into a room and people are going to listen. This is who we want to lead. Q. We talk a lot about Sam. Madi Sue, such a great career. Talk about her. KENNY GAJEWSKI: If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about Taylor Lynch, too. I think we forget. It's easy to forget Taylor, who her first year here hit .398, hit streak record here, holds numerous records in our books. She's forgettable right now because of her ACL, hitting .248. Never missed a game unless I sat her down. I want to make sure she gets that as well. She's had an amazing career here, deserves that. Madi Sue, man, she's Steady Eddie. That's who I call her. Just makes plays. She's so fun to watch. Some of the plays she made out there tonight were not easy. She makes them look easy. She is like a pacifier to me if that makes any kind of sense. You just sit there and it makes you feel good when she's out there. I've written her name in the lineup for four straight years every single day. Those kids are tough. They're tough to replace. But I'm better for coaching them. 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