All right, Coach. We'll start with a brief statement about the weekend and then we'll open it for questions. Yeah. highs and lows. You know, I thought competitive in game one had an opportunity to be able to tie it up. And, you know, when it comes down to the stretch, your whole goal is to get the tiger on up to bat and we were able to do that, you know, had some really good things really happy with Abby, hey, need some performance out of that first spot and so really good to see that she had a very competitive weekend. Obviously getting to the bats are alive and we've we played extremely well had a great pitch of performance. And then game three, grind like that. Those are the games that we got to try to win really grinded out that first run and then good outing for four innings out of worse in the camp. You know it was great to see that in her star that she was able to keep them off balance for four innings and then, you know, just left the ball over the heart of the play, which is that definitely going to happen at this level. You know, but we just didn't have an opportunity to be able to come back from that deficit. But I mean overall, and we're still not playing our best ball. We're finding ways to win and hopefully down the stretch. I will we have four four big weekends left. That we just got to continue to play together and stay healthy and just continue to grind and find a way to be able to call ourselves back in but I mean we're in order that spot like what you have. You guys would know better than I did was on 13 teams in the top 25. Like, yeah, pretty much like that. Like it's a it's a grind. It's a tough, tough situation. I don't know if there's any other sport that's that competitive in sec. So it's just a matter of getting wins when we can and just stay competitive. To give our RPI an opportunity to be able to host
on season one a five on the road in SEC play, just kind of what are the struggles that you've seen? Coaching kind of in that type of environment? Obviously it's tougher, whereas many true road environments early on in the season, so maybe that contributes to it, but what have you seen in that and how can you kind of turn that around strategy?
You know, Tennessee was in a different situation because it was our first or was our opener, completely different so not to take anything away from the Tennessee weekend but you know different in first I played a top 10 team so I'm gonna I'm gonna chalk that one up. In terms of Arkansas. The The atmosphere was it was very electric. They had their their school band in the stands, which is something we've never experienced in softball so that added a different layer of energy. They're extremely enthusiastic. They get on every single moment. I mean, when they're called their lineup and I mean, there's just so much energy in that venue from the berm all the way to the stands, and then you end the band you know, it's it's just tough to play these opponents. And when you play at home, it's like you'd have an extra player. So you're playing 11 against 10. So you know, they have that momentum on their side and then being able to close out a game is a little bit more challenging when you're on the road but we got to find ways to be able to do it and I think the difference is if we can quiet the crowd and score early. You know, in game three, we had an opportunity with the bases loaded. You know, if we able to put a couple of runs across the board then it's a different situation like we're controlling the momentum and the crowds not as loud so we got to be more aggressive. When we have those opportunities and not let it come down because I mean, we clawed our way to get that first run in game three, like we had to work extremely hard for that run. And then they come back with one swing and tie it up so the momentum wasn't in our favor for very long. You know as what batter so we have to do a better job of being able to quiet that crowd.
Coach talk about that one swing, obviously, it feels like your opponents are outscoring you when it comes to home runs. Is that something that you've noticed a lot and how that momentum swing has sort of affected your team. You know,
looking at looking at our team offensively. I'm just not happy with our inability to get ourselves on time. Like we're just not hitting balls hard. You know, we were getting some blue pits and that's great. Like we're putting the ball in play and we're manufacturing runs and we're drawing walks and hit by pitches like all those things are great, but when a team takes a hack and has a very powerful swing, either it's a swing and miss or it could be a fly ball. It keeps you on your toes a little bit and I feel like we're not we don't have that intent when we're in the batter's box all the time. When we feel we can dominate a pitcher we do and that's how it was in game two. And we were really aggressive and we were taking really good swings but when the picture is a little bit more dominant, we're we just get unsure of ourselves and then we just try to put the ball in play and we're defensive rather than still being aggressive. You know, it's best for teams to do it against us that they are they're jumping all over misses and the pitcher leaves the ball too hard to watch over the plate. They're putting a great swing on it. And that's why it's getting extremely hard. So we have to do a better job at that. And, you know, we'll focus on that today in practice. And you know, we head up to Drake on Wednesday. And, you know, we'll have another day of practice on Thursday and it's great that we're playing home so we can have a better routine. But we just have to we have to put better swings on pitches. You
mentioned Abby here earlier, four games or four games start shooting federally to team with a 333 average sec What was kind of impressed us about her approach and more to something that maybe some of the other players and kind of take away from her approach kind of going forward.
So Abby is on and I attribute this to her growing up playing baseball and having a father that played baseball so she's been around the game probably a lot longer than a lot of our other players and understands it from a different intellect. Abby will come up to meet and talk to me about pitchers approaches. And if I was calling the game against her, how would I threaten her and so the game within the game stuff is very, very mature for someone who's a freshman in college. And I think that gives her the edge that she understands a little bit more about how pitchers are going to attack her. And another strength of Abby is that she's just so unbelievably even keel like her heart rate is probably extremely low throughout the entire game. She doesn't get too high so she's not speeding up the game when the pressures on she just she stays with herself and controls was you control and that's why she's been able to really capitalize. I would say if I was to draw a line up in the fall, she was my dB. Like she had a really, really successful fall and then she had a little setback with with a little injury. And she's getting herself back in and took advantage of the opportunities that she had. And that was one of the starting first base position and I'm really excited to be able to see, the more she sees his pitching the more she's gonna develop
code. Sure. I mean, I mean, he was definitely a big boost to the bottom of your lineup, but you look at some of the games especially game three didn't get a lot of production from three through nine. Did you kind of see the team not kind of spiral in once one person gets and get a hit the next person doesn't next person does it and what can you do to kind of remedy that
you know, if you look into and we talked about this with a team if you look at Game Two, we had at one point we had nine quality events in a row and they weren't always hits like it was drawing walks. It was hit by pitches and it was successful in that. That's how we're gonna win ballgames is having quality at bats. When we don't draw pit walks when we don't get hit when we don't have situational hitting, then we're putting all the pressure on one person to get that big hit. And if our lineup isn't designed to be able to do that, it puts a lot of pressure on that one person. So every hitter that steps in the batter's box has to ask to analyze what's my job right now my job is to get on base so get on base any way you possibly can, rather than trying to hit a three run home run with nobody on base and that's where they get outside of themselves a little bit and try to do too much.
You mentioned timing when you kind of look at that approach on Saturday and what was maybe different on Saturday, that Sunday's performance and just kind of the the offensive scheme and how kind of things unravel
it all comes down to the change of it all comes down to when the pitcher has a successful changeup. It throws us it's like a watch, like literally it's like a grandfather clock, like all of a sudden that the metronome in the bottom is out of whack. And when a pitcher has a changeup, it's totally disrupting our timing. And we're really having a hard time disciplining ourselves to pick which time which pitch to hit either hard or soft for a quarter between. So when Saturday they didn't have effective changeup to throw us out of whack and that's really been our Achilles heel all season long is is being able to recognize the changeup because if we don't recognize it, we have no idea which one to hit hard or soft, so we got to do a better job to be able to recognize it. Our dugout, student amazing job kienet and picking it up. Our hitters have to be able to keep our hands back so that we're able to stay on that pitch a lot longer.
We talked a lot about hitting from the pitching side you play three different starters and CZ gets to start on Friday. What what didn't do the decision when you're making those stars to have Harrison go on Friday and then McCain on Sunday?
I think it CC earned it. She's had some really good outings. You know Krings is has struggled a little bit and I think a lot of that comes into teams having a real good scouting report against cranes and knowing that she's been the game one starter so just kind of mixing it up from from two things because she's earned it and CC her that Friday night star and then also to kind of throw a little wrench in there and maybe catch them off balance and take a little bit longer to be able to make some of those adjustments. Yes,
we can ward obviously picked up her first one in a while. Just kind of what you see from her and what was like to kind of see her bounce back. She's been on I think her last three stars. She's kind of just kind of turned the corner from some of those Tennessee stars. Yeah,
and I think cranes. It was one of her better outings. She looked more locked in. She was more focused and more determined. She knows she wasn't throwing extremely well and the biggest thing that we've been working on is is not limping on one side of the play. When you can dominate a team on one side of the play, you kind of get used to doing that. And we face some teams that have taken that away from her so she has to be able to throw quality pitches on the other side of the plate. She obviously needs her changeup and I talked about that all the time. But the difference with creams is that she was able to throw both sides of the plate to keep them off balance.
What impressed you about mcommerce McCain same thing.
I mean, she was there on both sides of the flame real effective with a changeup had real good control and so that will run into that fourth inning and, and again it's one pitch and we talked about a lot that whenever the pitcher throws the ball off in the zone, which majority of our pitchers do or rise more pitchers, the ball is gonna get hit in the air. We only have one drop off pitcher. So realizing that those things are going to happen we just can't have too much the ball will play in one pitch just got away from her at that moment. I would have liked to see her rebound a little bit more not give up to back to back home runs and that's a learning experience for her. But she through both sides of the play extremely well. She had some key key strikeouts and really her change. It was very effective. For us. We
look ahead another big week in the SEC obviously not to overlook Drake but we got Florida at home. What are you hoping to see out of your pitching staff against a very good Gator team?
You know what I'm playing around with right now is do I need to make some pitching changes earlier and not expect the starter to go through the lineup twice. You know that's something that I'm going to be considering and we always have somebody ready but it's like I put a lot of trust into that starter and I want them to be able to go as far as they possibly can. But you know, Florida is a really strong team and maybe we're gonna have to make a big change if we're not getting the swings and misses that we need to buy that starter. So that's the first thing that I'm going to be looking at a little bit more and maybe pitch by committee a little bit more in the series because they are such a strong team. Florida also likes to run a lot a lot of pressure on our defense and I thought that we handled that extremely well against Arkansas. The top of the lineup is very fast and probably one of their leadoff hitters, probably one of the fastest players that we've ever played against and we did an unbelievable job keeping her off the bases. So we're gonna have to do the same thing. It's Florida because they have really athletic speed and they like to put runners in motion so we have to be really quick defensively.
Obviously Drake tomorrow and then what's been your message to the team to kind of avoid something like a SEMA last week? Just kind of as you try to prepare for Florida but also obviously understand that you got to win this one if you want to regionals, berth. Yeah,
you know, we definitely have to and you know, it's not to put more pressure on a game, but it's get them to realize what level do we have to play at to get to where we want to go and that's our standard and paying attention to that and not worry about history or Florida or Georgia. It's what does Mizzou softball have to do in order to get to where we want to go and just continue to measure that. So
obviously you guys travel on the road to drink again, I believe this will be the 10th consecutive week that you guys are playing at least one game on the road. Obviously it's been wonders for your wonders for your RPi But have you noticed any sort of like effect on the team whether it's fatigued any sort of drag. The
biggest thing I've noticed with this schedule is our inability to practice. That's probably been from a coaching standpoint, the most frustrating because we obviously have to have an off day it's required. We'll practice on Tuesday and having a midweek game on Wednesday. Like I don't want to bury them on that Tuesday knowing that we have a game on Wednesday, especially our pitching staff like I can't overthrow our pitchers on Tuesday with a midweek game. And then Thursday, we've been on the road again and you haven't waited for practice on the road when you get to another facility than you do at home. So that I think has been the biggest thing that I'm not seeing us able to coach as much as we typically do when we play a lot more home games and and the development has been a lot slower. We still have four weeks to go and you know postseason five and six. So you know, it's not the end of the season, but fatigue. Yes, it's a factor but I think we are paying a lot more attention to recovery and making sure that they are getting the proper recovery. And what they're doing in the training room and if it is any protein shakes and things like that so that we are able to rebound but from a coaching standpoint, it's the limited practice time.
Any questions from zooms Natalie Karen? I wanted to ask you about my Dodge. She's come back to earth a little bit at the plate after an awesome East Coast trip but this past week he robbed the homerun deal. Could you just speak on her development how far she's come especially over these past few weeks.
She has and she she's still learning like there's a big difference between the teams we played out on the East Coast and the SEC. She has to be able to make some faster adjustments in terms of how teams are pitching her and what pitches she needs to be looking for. I saw growth even though she didn't get the results. I saw much better growth from Game one to game three. In terms of her at bats. But her defensive play like she's she was Alex Honnold before game two and said, I'm going after every single ball you possibly can until you call me off so it's kind of like that aggressive mentality that she needs to have out there and trusting trusting herself and not waiting for someone else to call her off. So it's really just that aggressive mentality that I've seen that she's really growing with.
Um, so I wanted to ask about I think you had said something about how the players were kind of unsure. Of themselves when facing dominant pitching. So like, how do you get the Americans to that mindset of how they have like, how they had so much success against like magic into in being one. How do they get back to, to that? Yeah,
I know. Exactly. And it's just it's it's, you can do some measurables so we have some analytic measurables. And some some programs we have understanding, which is really why it's so important for us to practice at home. And we can measure exit velocity, so showing them you know, when you're tentative and you're swinging with just your hands, your exit velocity is 55 when you really get after and push into the ground with your lower body, your exit velocity 75. So then they can start to see some of those things, and then feel what that feels like. And then it's just constantly like that self talk like athletes, athletes need that positive self talk and when an athlete is saying like, don't strike out rather than attack. It's it's a mindset. So from a coaching standpoint, almost getting in their ear where they're having batting practice on here, combs get after an attack, swing hard push into the ground, like all those positive words. So then that's the self talk that they're having because in the game, you don't know what they're thinking. And athletes never ever want to fail. And in softball and baseball, you're going to fail more than you're going to succeed. And the feeling of striking out sometimes is the most devastating for them and getting back to giving them permission to strike out but strike out with authority, rather than strikeout being defensive.
Any other questions from zoom? Cool. Awesome. Thank you so much, Coach.
