WOMEN'S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: BATON ROUGE REGIONAL

May 16, 2026

Craig Nicholson

Delaney Jenkinson

Madie Jamrog

Tiger Park

Akron Zips

Postgame Press Conference

Virginia Tech 7, Akron 6

CRAIG NICHOLSON: Obviously the most recent thing is what sticks in your head, right? I mean, for 14 innings today, I thought we were pretty special. And it just got away from us in the 15th inning that we played today. And to have one person go throw all 15 of those innings and pitch the way she pitched today is pretty dang impressive.

I'm just proud of our group and the way we competed. There was a lot of firsts in this season for Akron softball. And I don't believe they'll be the last. Proud of the group, proud of the kids and the way they competed.

Like I told them, we played probably just -- I don't know what Virginia Tech is ranked, 14th ranked team in the country right now, for six innings we were a lot better than them. But not for seven.

Q. Madie, so like he said, you went out and threw two games today. What was kind of going through your head? What was the thought process, especially from a very important pitching battle in Game 1 to immediately get thrown right back into the fire for Game 2?

MADIE JAMROG: So I just really rely on my team. I try to contribute as much as I can. I love to be in those positions where I can contribute and I can do my best to help them because obviously I don't help them offensively. So anything defensively I can do to help them makes me feel good.

I'm just so beyond proud of them for helping me get through that, because it's a long day, at the end of the day, and they really pushed me to give me energy and help me through that.

Q. And one of the firsts that your coach was just mentioning was obviously the tournament win that happened earlier today. So this question is for both of you. What does it feel like for you as an Akron player to kind of be a part of history like that and contribute to this first postseason win for y'all?

DELANEY JENKINSON: It's definitely like a great accomplishment. I mean, just being here since my freshman year and just seeing the program build up from what seemed like not a lot, it's been a great accomplishment. And just being able to do it with all these girls is -- I'm just so proud of our team.

MADIE JAMROG: It's a really special group. Coach had talked about it in the postgame huddle. We're a special group of girls, have a really good connection. Most of us have really good friendships on the team. I think that's what helped us get as far as we could because we all trust in each other, we all believed in each other. Even if you're not on the field contributing, you're contributing in other ways, and it was honestly such a crazy experience, and I'm so proud to be a part of it.

Q. Can you put into words the confidence that you, your team were feeling throughout this game, throughout the day, about the performance of both the pitching as well as at the plate against Virginia Tech?

DELANEY JENKINSON: I think just coming out of the first game, we definitely -- we were definitely low on energy, so I think that just coming together and realizing what we just did, how we won that game and how we persevered throughout the entire game. I think that really led into the second game and how well we did in the second game.

MADIE JAMROG: Honestly, I think the first game was kind of just a shock factor for all of us. We'd never really been in a stadium like this before. A lot of nerves, making history with this team. I think we just weren't really being ourselves, and we didn't fully believe in ourselves like we normally would, like during the MAC tournament and during the season and everything. Kind of what D.J. said, we just took that and shook it off and became us for day two.

Q. You both are juniors. When you look at what you've all built so far, what's your outlook look like? How positive do you feel about the future of Akron softball?

MADIE JAMROG: I'm very excited about the future because we have a lot of people, like, returning and who have been to a regional. So now we know what it feels like. We know how to experience it, how to deal with some things that we didn't know how to deal with before. This is all new for all of us.

I think it's very exciting to know that we have a lot of people coming back and we'll teach the new people how we do things and how we play.

DELANEY JENKINSON: Kind of building off of that, I think with this being the first time for our whole team, it will be really cool to see how the team improves even more. We're already so good. So I think next year there's so much more that we can do. Seeing like what we've experienced, we can also build off of that and just keep going and keep improving.

Q. Yesterday, when you were sitting here, after the loss, you sat here and said we definitely left stuff on the table. That's not our way that we play. Were you even surprised at what your team gave today? Because it was two different types of games. A pitching duel down to the stretch, and then this game 30 minutes later. To see what this team brought, was that what you were expecting, or were you even a bit surprised?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: I wasn't surprised. I felt we would come back today and play better.

And obviously LSU got the jump on us last night scoring six runs in the first three innings.

But at no point did I believe that this team doubted themselves, and they just came back and played their tails off today. And, quite frankly, what happened in the seventh inning is our pitcher, who had a great day, ran out of gas. For me, I still feel like that was our best chance to close the door was still with her.

Q. You mentioned it earlier, but new program highs, RBIs, walks, home runs and now runs scored in the season. Just as a general overlook of the season, how do you feel about everything?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: I think we accomplished a lot. And the biggest thing is for a lot of these girls or a lot of these young ladies in the program, learning how to win is hard.

You can learn how to play the game the right way. You can learn how to be a better hitter, a better pitcher, a better fielder. The last piece is learning how to win and learning how to win at a high level.

We're not quite there yet, but we made huge strides in terms of that this season. And we won in multiple ways this year, and I think that's a big piece of just learning how to win. It means something. And it takes time and it takes doing it to understand how to do it.

Q. I know the easy answer is to get outs, but when you -- if you felt the momentum changing, was there anything that you thought, oh, this is what we can do to get momentum, other than, like I said, the simple answer of just getting outs? I think the other part of my question is did you get anything on the side about the play at second base beyond just the call of the review?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: No, I didn't get any other information. I don't know. People can make their own determination on that one, but I know what it looked like to me.

There was a few things in that game. But at the end of the day, you've got to overcome those things. I still feel like we did everything we could to overcome them. Absolutely, there was a huge momentum switch in the seventh inning. I mean, for six innings I really felt like we commanded that game, and the first two hitters of the seventh inning changed the momentum.

Actually, I'll even go back one before that. What really changed the momentum is bases loaded, nobody out in the bottom of the sixth and we can't score a run.

I was thinking we need to run-rule these guys to save some innings for Jam for tomorrow. That's what was going through my head. Never mind the run rule, we didn't score a run when we had the opportunity to do it. It is what it is. You want to dissect the game. That's what the game came down to. You want to look at the season as a whole, still proud of where we got to and what we did.

Q. If I remember correctly, four years in for you, with the program, and now you've made it. Never been here. Now you've already gotten your first win under your belt. When you talked to the team afterwards, what was the approach to them? What was the message to them? What do they take from this first experience and all the firsts that you just accomplished?

CRAIG NICHOLSON: Yeah, I think for them, I've been here before. And I try to instill what it takes to win in these environments. In fact, I've been right here in Baton Rouge sitting at this table or a different one somewhere like this, after losing a regional.

But you try to instill everything that you know and teach them what you know. But it's one of those things where, man, you've got to experience it for yourself. And now that they've experienced it for themselves, I feel like it's easier to pass from player to player than it is from coach or coaching staff to player.

So I think we're set up now, if we can do the hard work, to get back to a regional next year to play in that regional at a little higher level. And that does not mean that we didn't play well this weekend. It just means that right from the jump, we'll be a little bit more prepared, having been through this experience.