WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: BATON ROUGE REGIONAL

May 15, 2026

Craig Nicholson

Meagan Lee

Katie Cantrell

Tiger Park

Akron Zips

Postgame Press Conference

LSU 8, Akron 0

CRAIG NICHOLSON: I think we have more in us than what we just showed in that game. Obviously facing a good opponent, a good pitcher. Probably the three runs in the first inning were a big piece of what happened in that game, but I do truly believe that we have more in us than what we showed.

Q. What was it like facing a left-hander, and you all hadn't seen a lot of those this year, and what was she trying to do?

MEAGAN LEE: I think it was a little challenging for our lefties especially, normally prepping left-handed a little bit. It was a little surprise for us a little. But gotta make adjustments on the go this time of year, and it's just something we've got to work through.

KATIE CANTRELL: Yeah, I agree. We were caught off guard by the lefty starting. I think it took us a minute to really adjust. And I think the speed was there for us. I think we could definitely get to it. We just needed to make adjustments quicker.

Q. When you're playing in a bigger environment like this and also in the tournament for the first time in school history, were there any jitters about the team coming into this?

KATIE CANTRELL: I think it was a lot of excitement, less jitters and more just leave it all out on the field and see what happens, and I'm excited to play tomorrow and see what we can do.

MEAGAN LEE: For sure. I think, we're obviously the underdog coming in here. We have nothing to lose at this point.

I think when we were doing MAC tournament it was a little bit more jitters because it was something we had to lose, and we wanted to win that so bad so we could get here. But now that we're here, it's just kind of play and just see what happens.

Q. They didn't get the three runs early. You guys got base runners in the middle innings on base, feel like you had chances; you feel like you could have played it different?

MEAGAN LEE: We gave ourselves opportunities, but we didn't capitalize on it. That shows something. We didn't just put our head down and quit. Just being able to kind of roll on that, and we got some hits and walks in good areas. So that should help.

KATIE CANTRELL: One thing I know about this team, we don't give up very easily. I think a few runs in the beginning weren't really anything for us. We just didn't get the hit when we needed it. But we fought (indiscernible) fought together.

Q. Did you feel like your team handled the pressure of playing in the tournament for the first time? Did you get a good vibe from them before you all took the field?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: Yeah, for sure. I thought we were ready to go. Like the girls said, it's like the nerves, I don't think we were nervous.

I don't think we played to the level we are capable of playing. We made adjustments early. Some of that's on me. We thought we were going to have someone else in the circle. When you have that short prep time, you throw the dice a little bit. And obviously they use multiple arms on their staff. So some of that is on me a little bit on the prep.

But like it was said, you've got to make adjustments and go from there. I thought we did. Our bats got better as the game went along a little bit. But not quite enough.

Q. How do you get your team to kind of just, I guess, just move on from this one and kind of go back into the elimination game?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: They'll be fine. Like Katie just said, we're not going to give up or quit. I'm not the only one in that dugout that believes we've got more in us. So that's a good thing. And we'll come back. I think we'll play better tomorrow. What happens is what's going to happen. But I think that we'll show a little bit better tomorrow. We'll play a little bit better. Their psyche, I'm not worried about this. This team bounces back faster than any I've ever been around. They'll be ready to go. They might wear it a little bit tonight but they'll be ready to go tomorrow.

Q. What concerned you about LSU at the beginning of the game? What was one out that --

CRAIG NICHOLSON: Their team athleticism was one. That was one piece of it we were really concerned about, and I think their pitching staff does a really good job. And their ability to have multiple arms and do some different things. Like I said, we guessed wrong, but we were concerned with our ability to compete with their pitching, for sure. And I thought we'd have to put together some really good at-bats to score runs.

We put together some good at-bats. We just didn't string quite enough together and score some runs. But as you said earlier, we definitely had opportunities innings 2 through 6 to put some runs on the board.