Linda Kalafatis Quotations

We're expecting her back this weekend. I think we may start her throwing (Wednesday). She is a little sore, but it's just a little bit. She is getting healthier everyday.

We're not a home run-hitting team. We'll pop some out and that's fun, but we're a gap team. We're a singles team. We're a quick team. All of our runs and all of our hits were in the house.

Through and through the Big Ten is a battle every game. We were a step away from the NCAA tournament last year and that's part of the reason we put a challenging schedule together for 2006. We'll have to show up every day, wire to wire. This could be our toughest schedule ever.

Megan probably gets to the ball quicker than anyone in our outfield. Offensively she has good instincts and loves to hit with runners on base. Liz became our starting centerfielder by the end of the year last year and became an even better hitter through the fall. She has as good an arm as anyone in the Big Ten in centerfield.

No one knows this program better than Belinda. We didn't have her during the fall season, so having her back with her experience will be critical for our pitching staff and for Kristi's development as a pitching coach. And I love Kristi's passion for the game - she still wants to be out there on the field. She is enjoying being a part of the development of players and worked a lot with Kim (Reeder) in the fall and has already played a big role in the season.

I was pleased with how we executed and came out ready to play after the rain delay. Kim gave us great effort on the mound and we backed her up with the hits and runs we needed.

If anything, we've maybe not gotten the recognition that we deserve. And then when you put the challenges of practicing indoors for this amount of time and not being able to have the team outside (unlike some of the West Coast and southern schools) I'm not sure how many of those guys can do what we do and be as good as we are.

Later in the game we put our outfield back because (Michigan) had been hitting a lot of gap shots, and it came back to bite us.

I think there is a little bit of mental letdown there for sure. We've done a little bit of that here in the last couple of weeks, and we're certainly not happy with them.

Our biggest question is how do we replace the consistency at shortstop that we had the last four years with Jennifer Johnson . We also need to establish our pitching depth and the catcher position. Like last year, I feel very good about our offense, which is why our defense will be so important.

Ritter is a first-team All-American and in the Olympic program and it showed. We had a game plan against her but we didn't stick to it too well when she came back in. I give our girls credit for battling and coming out with a lot of intensity. That's just a very good Michigan team.

Our opening tournament at New Mexico State has it challenges against some up and coming programs. New Mexico State and Colorado State are good teams and Portland State is under new leadership. UT-San Antonio led the nation in home runs last year. Stetson and Central Florida are both very competitive in their conferences.

We got the two wins but we had some set some goals to accomplish tonight that we didn't achieve. In the end, the girls executed and moved runners, but that second game could have turned out differently.

We played with much better energy than yesterday. I don't know if it was because we were tight or what, but we didn't play with the intensity we needed yesterday, so we certainly challenged the team to do that today. Everyone stepped up and we had much better at bats. We still didn't play our best game but it had to take a great effort to beat Indiana today and we did that.

We are counting on Ali's experience as a coach and from a player's standpoint. She brings an ability to wear many different hats and she has a great compassion for the game and competition. Her expectations are high.

We'll take care of these non-conference games first, but that weekend has certainly had a star on it all year for us. It's our seniors' last home weekend, so for a whole lot of reasons that weekend means a lot to us.

We have been focusing on defense. To come out and not make some plays there was not what we wanted certainly, but our kids responded back with the bats.

We have been emphasizing defense a lot lately and it came through today. And as long we keep swinging the bats and pitching like that we'll be competitive. This team loves challenges and we met the challenge today. Next week is a whole new challenge, first in the non-conference games and then with Michigan and Michigan State.

We said going into (the game) that we wanted to be aggressive on balls hit into the outfield. These (plays) were careless mistakes. We shouldn't have made those mistakes, and it probably stopped us from scoring a couple of runs.

We had some goals that we wanted to establish, and we didn't achieve these goals so that's disappointing.

A couple of weeks prior, we had been a little too patient. We've been on them to be a little more aggressive.

Coming off facing some of the best teams and best pitchers last weekend in Palm Springs, I told the team this weekend was pivotal. Those first weekends were a part of our growth and now we need to be in full swing and show who we are this time. I'm so proud of our kids that we stayed tough tonight. Alabama doesn't lose much on their field.

As a team, you feed off each other. We've really started to swing the bats well here in the last couple of weeks.

It's the kids getting a little ahead of themselves and trying to make the next play. We have to stop making mistakes on routine plays.

I'm not sure if it is the best we've played, but we're getting better and that's what we're working towards. As long as our kids keep putting in the effort and keep responding to the challenges we put in front of them, we can't ask for much more.

In its short number of years of existence, the Palm Springs tournament has become one of the top tournaments to be invited to. Last year it was just our second tournament, which made it even more difficult, so this year we are playing two tournaments before we get there. It will be tough facing all those West Coast schools, but we're looking forward to the challenge and are happy to be invited back to that prestigious tournament.

I'm so proud of the way we came out. We were intense, and we were attacking. We made a couple critical mistakes, too.

Alabama is a great program in the SEC and Louisville won a very good Conference-USA last year. Louisville beat us on our field in the fall so we'll be excited to play them again when we're at full strength.

The competitive equity around the country has really grown. I think it's still pretty common knowledge that the hotbed is still out on the West Coast, but there are really good softball players coming from all over the country now.