May 26, 2006
Arizona State Head Coach Clint Myers
"I thought it was a great ballgame. I thought that FSU, as we thought, was a very good and well disciplined team. We got timely hitting and we played good defense. We hit two homeruns and when you score like that, it makes the coaches' lives a lot easier."
"I really enjoyed this. This team has so much potential and they are really just coming into their own right now and we talk about heroes, we talk about timely hitting, and we got both today. We had some people come up big and get on base, and if those people don't get on, we don't have those situations to score runs."
CF Kaitlin Cochran
"I was looking for a pitch to drive and she game inside a little bit so I just wanted to hack it as best I could. We got the early lead and that was all we needed."
3B Bianca Cruz
"I was lucky to get a pitch to drive. I really felt like I got a piece of it and it just carried. It's great. It's an awesome feeling. It was my first grand slam and I can't think of a better time to have my first one. I'm glad that my first time came in this situation. In my previous at-bat she came inside on the first pitch and I took it. I was figuring that she may try and go in again and if it happened, I was going to be ready. It feels good to get this first game. It always helps to have a win on your shoulders and we want to come out and fight hard for this next one because it can go either way once you get to that third game."
P Katie Burkhart
"I knew that it was going to be a tough game for me because they had seen my pitching before and they came out swinging, but to be able to pitch behind such a great team, it just makes it that much easier and I just had a lot of fun today. I felt really good today and the weather was really nice."
Florida State Head Coach JoAnne Graf
"All in all, it's not how we wanted to start and how we wanted to play the first game. We let them jump out ahead of us with an error on the first batter and a homerun on the second batter. Really, those were the only two runs they needed. It wasn't our best performance defensively and offensively, we struggled a bit early in the game. We started to be a little more patient at the plate and put the ball on the bat better as the game wore on, but Arizona State came out fired up and they got the job done."
On pitching for tomorrow:
"I'm not sure who will pitch tomorrow yet. Melissa May threw very well in her last outing against Georgia in that if-necessary game. I'll talk to our pitching coach and we may go with Melissa May the first game and bring Tiffany back in the second game."
On getting down early:
I don't think that the first homerun really put us out of it. It was after they got the grand slam that it really put the hammer down on us. In this ballpark with these fences, we hit a couple that were at the fence and had they been about a foot longer, it would have been a different game. We had the bases loaded in the seventh so I don't think that you are ever out of it with 190 foot fences, which is shorter than we are used to seeing. We just have to hit the ball better and we can't let them get the big hit and get four runs in one swing."
P Tiffany McDonald
On the big hits by ASU:
"I felt really good out there. The first homerun was really my mistake, I threw a flat ball and she just capitalized on it. The grand slam was on the first pitch and we had been getting the calls inside all day, so I went in on her and she got her hands on it and pulled it out of the park. Other than that, I felt like I was throwing really well."
CF Veronica Wootson
On building off this game for tomorrow:
"This will definitely [carry over to tomorrow.] Everyone got at least two at-bats and we had a chance to see [Katie Burkhart]. I'm sure that we will go watch tape now and hopefully be more productive at the plate. Depending on what the umpire calls, we will adjust to that."