Alabama 5, Arizona 1
THE MODERATOR: This is the Game 3 press conference featuring Arizona. Joined by student-athletes Jessie Harper and Janelle Meono.
We'll start with questions.
Q. (Indiscernible.)
JESSIE HARPER: I'm going to say, hey, we have another game left. I choose to go with my team, to work with my team. I'm proud of us. We've shown one hell after fight to get here, we're excited to go here. I'm glad to step on the field today and I choose us.
Q. Janelle, you were one of the players that got a hit off Montana. What were you seeing? Why is she so difficult as a pitcher?
JANELLE MEONO: I think the one thing she has on us was her speed. It was difficult, I guess, for a couple of us to get on time. But I think we did adjust towards the end. We just needed to see more pitches and extend our at-bats. We'll be back, ready for the next game.
Q. What is kind of the mindset at this point? You have a day to kind of think about things before you play again. Kind of the mindset of the next day until you play.
JESSIE HARPER: You live and you learn. You take what you've done this game and you move forward. You trust in your teammates, you trust in yourself and in your preparation.
I would go to war with my team. I'm ready. Going to go hit tomorrow. Work on the little things. As long as you have trust in yourself and the people in front of you and behind you, you'll be good to go.
We are wearing Arizona on our chest, so we have a target on our backs no matter what. If we come out and play our game, we'll be good to go.
JANELLE MEONO: Coach tells us as long as we have innings to play, we have a chance to win. We are taking that mindset. We're still have games to play, innings to play, so we're ready to win.
Q. Describe what's going through your head right now going into the loser's bracket. Does Coach say, "You have to stay in the winner's bracket, it's brutal in the loser's bracket"? What is going through your head looking forward? How confident are you that Arizona as a team has the tools to march through the loser's bracket?
JANELLE MEONO: I'm super confident in our team. I trust every one of them. I believe in every one of them. They all have skills to play this game. They're really good at it. I'm not worried. I feel that we've prepared for this moment, and we're going to be fine.
JESSIE HARPER: I'm excited. We have another game left. I get to put on this uniform again. Our team is going to be ready. We're going to do whatever we have to to make it back to the top.
But, hey, it's softball. We're playing it. That's all we can do is just keep playing our game, but be super thankful that we're here. We've earned the right to be here.
We're going to do what we have to do to make it back to the top. It's going to be a grind. I trust ourselves, I trust our teammates, so we're going to be good.
Q. Jessie, what does it feel like to hit the home run?
JESSIE HARPER: I told myself that I'm getting Dejah another at-bat. Dejah is super special. I love watching her at the plate. I trust in her 100%. If we could get Dejah another at-bat, it's going to be good.
That was my mindset, is just, Hey, you're not going to beat me again. Let's get Dejah up, and let's see what we can do from there. So yeah.
Q. How important is it to maintain a positive team cohesion coming off of that loss?
JANELLE MEONO: I think we have to remain positive all the time, especially now that we've fallen in the loser's bracket. Just trusting in one another, believing in one another, keeping each other up is a big part of the game, yeah.
JESSIE HARPER: This game's tough mentally and emotionally. But, hey, we just need to lean on each other, just get excited to put on this uniform again. This uniform is so special. Stepping out on that field with my teammates is so special. We need to enjoy the little things, just look forward to the next game. We have another game. We're going to make this our last run and make it as far as we possibly can. But just have trust in yourself and be super confident. At the end of the day we've put in the body of work and we've earned the right to be here.
Q. (No microphone.)
THE MODERATOR: I apologize.
JESSIE HARPER: Go out and win. We're going to try to do the best to play Arizona softball. We're going to trust in our preparation, go out there and play hard. It's going to be a grind, but I choose us every day.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time.
JESSIE HARPER: Thank you.
JANELLE MEONO: Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Coach. We'll take questions.
Q. (No microphone.)
THE MODERATOR: Your starting pitcher.
MIKE CANDREA: Yeah, our starting pitcher was Hanah Bowen.
Q. Can you talk about her performance?
MIKE CANDREA: She had a couple mistakes, but overall competed, did a good job. I felt like if we could go into the last innings with a 2-0 ballgame, it would be a little bit different. I thought Reyna's call kind of changed some momentum in the game.
We're at the College World Series. This is what happens. We need to just kind of reset and move forward.
Q. Could you talk a little bit about Montana Fouts, what you were seeing?
MIKE CANDREA: She was outstanding. My hat goes off to her. She threw a hell of a ballgame. We really didn't have any answers for the majority of that game.
I think early on, you know, we were just not catching up to the speed or we were actually making ourselves react quicker than what we needed to instead of trying to slow it down and get good pitches.
I thought early in the game we looked at pitches we probably could have hit, gave her the opportunity to throw the rise ball up in the zone and we started chasing.
She's a good pitcher. 72 miles an hour is not easy to hit. Even if it's straight. Well, Montana has not only the velocity, but she has good movement. We knew it was going to be a challenge. I thought we would obviously be a little better than we were today. We just couldn't figure it out, ran out of innings.
Q. What is tomorrow going to look like for your team?
MIKE CANDREA: Yeah, we're going to continue to do what we normally do. We got a day off tomorrow, quote, day off. We're going to go out and practice, do some hitting, get prepared for Saturday.
Q. When you have to pitch to a player like Hemphill, how do you approach that as a team? How do you try to make sure things don't happen when you know she can hit it well?
MIKE CANDREA: Well, truthfully you try not to give her anything she can hit. That's easier said than done. She ended up hitting a backdoor curve. The ball got over the plate, she squared it up. So you tip your hat to her.
But like I said, I think the thing of today was Montana Fouts. I thought she truly threw a very good ballgame, really kept us at check. When you don't have an offense, sometimes I felt like a ghost at third base, there's not much you can do. All you can do to win a game like that is to match them pitch for pitch. We didn't quite do that.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much for your time. We'll see you on Saturday.
MIKE CANDREA: You got it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports