bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the series with Nevada, your team showed no sign of a letdown coming off the Fresno State series win. The Aggies scored six runs in the first inning on Friday and really set the tone for the entire weekend.
Kathy Rodolph: Offensively we definitely after the Fresno series freed ourselves to do what we do and stay aggressive. I felt like everybody just did their part. Kylie did a job of setting the table followed by Kandis and then Tiare had a monster weekend. Then you have Ashley Maroda and Teresa Conrad and it just goes down the line and everybody just feels good right now.

bc.net: You mentioned the weekend that Tiare had.
KR: I really attribute Tiare's success to really her coming in and working extra and her deciding that she wasn't performing to the level she wanted early in the season. There is very seldom a day that goes by where Tiare doesn't come in and hit extra now. What's nice about it is that extra effort is paying off for her.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your team's defense on Friday, particularly in the first inning was shaky but then on Saturday your team came out in really difficult conditions and played one of the best defensive games I've seen them play.
Kathy Rodolph: We talked Saturday before the game and we felt like on Friday night we had played very tentative and we had not looked like us at all. We had different opportunities to take care of things and just could not get it together and just kind of seemed outmatched and overpower. On Saturday we decided we were going to come out and from the very beginning we were going to be willing to live with any mistakes that we made but we were going to play hard because that's how we play. Whether it was offense or defense, we were going to push it and we were going to live with the outcome and I feel like that's what you got when just came together and freed ourselves and decided we were going to play as hard as we could and decide at the end of the game if it was good enough to win.

bc.net: Celisha Walker pitched outstandingly on the weekend but her defense was stellar in fielding her position, particularly in the early innings of game one.
KR: Celisha Walker is an extremely athletic player, she just happens to be a pitcher. She could absolutely play a position for us and hit as well, she's very athletic. She brings a whole new dimension on defense when she's in the circle because it's like having a shortstop fielding in the circle.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your assessment of the six games you played against Arizona and Nebraska?
Kathy Rodolph: I felt like the Arizona/Nebraska games helped prepare us for the battles that we were going to face in conference. Obviously they're very outstanding programs. We played strong against Arizona, we just couldn't quite close it out. I felt like the confidence we gained from the Arizona series helped us in the first game against Nebraska. As the series went on with Nebraska, a very talented team, outstanding pitcher in Hagemann and we got close a couple other times but just were not able to get to her.

bc.net: What did your team take away from that week as you prepared to open conference play?
KR: Teams in the Top 15 are definitely different than teams in the Top 25 and I feel like playing teams in the Top 15, any miss and they're going to hurt you but at the same time, you can't be intimidated by them or you can't be yourself. What we asked the kids to do was to learn to play pitch by pitch, stay present and be very aggressive and play as hard as we could play regardless of the outcome and if something happened, if there was an error or strikeout or something that didn't go our way, to have a very short memory and see how quickly we could recover and get into the next pitch. I feel like we were able to play strong the majority of the time, we had one blowout by Nebraska that we just couldn't stop the bleeding but I feel like it really strengthened our confidence that we can play a very high caliber of softball.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: You've got a big week this week with six games against ranked opponents, two against Arizona State tomorrow and four against Nebraska this weekend.
Kathy Rodolph: It's going to be a good challenge for us. The schedule was devised to where we would continue to face stronger competition as each week came along and trying to hopefully prepare us for conference play. A big test against Arizona tomorrow night and then four games against Nebraska. Both teams are having great years.

bc.net: To recap the last couple of weekends of play, you went down to El Paso for the UTEP tournament and had a good come from behind win over UTEP, beat Bradley in an extra innings game, split with Texas State and then run-ruled North Dakota.
KR: I felt like at that tournament we were still giving up too many runs in the circle and starting off in the hole, giving up a couple runs right off the bat in the first inning. We were doing a great job offensively of whatever the challenge was we were going to meet it but we continued to get better and when we went to Arizona State the following weekend we continued to get a little bit better.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on your 4-2 performance this weekend in the Troy Cox Classic?
Kathy Rodolph: I'm pleased about the weekend. I felt like we won the games we were supposed to win. We challenged well against Oklahoma on Friday night and on Sunday were just outmanned.

bc.net: On Friday, obviously it was a good pitching performance from Keilani Ricketts but your team was able to get to her late and had a couple of chances to tie the game late.
KR: We definitely had runners on but I'm going to tip my hat to Keilani. She was throwing pretty much 70 to 73 mph and had one pitch at 76 mph. That was definitely the hardest throwing of anyone we've seen. I was very proud of our kids because they battled every pitch, every inning. Oklahoma executed a couple squeeze plays that broke it open then we battled back and got on and I was very proud of our battling. I was really proud of Celisha Walker in the circle. When she missed Oklahoma punished her and got some great hits but I was really excited about her composure and being able to come out and face a Top 10 team and keep us in the ballgame for a long time.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the opening weekend?
Kathy Rodolph: We started practice January 8th and so we'd been practicing an awful long time and I feel like the kids came out with tremendous energy and excitement to play and I thought that carried throughout the whole weekend. Probably what I was most excited about on the weekend was the solid contributions that we got from a lot of people. It speaks for now as well as in the future.

bc.net: Teresa Conrad and Valerie Swedberg put up some big numbers in the opening weekend and for Conrad, her numbers were a big jump over last year.
KR: Teresa had a really good fall for us and hit really well all fall and probably the most notable accomplishment for Teresa on the weekend is Cat moved her into the five hole to protect Hoku because Hoku was getting walked a lot and Teresa was really able to solidify and come through in clutch situations protecting Hoku in that five hole. Teresa did a great job offensively for us.

Valerie Swedberg is a heck of a hitter. She had broken Angie Ortega's home run record for high school so I knew that when I got her I really had a good one coming in as a freshman.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Last week your team was named an NFCA All-Academic Team, 40th in the country among Division I teams in GPA, you were the only WAC team to earn the honor and you had 11 girls named as Scholar Athletes.
Kathy Rodolph: I'm extremely proud of what our kids have done in the classroom. We place a high emphasis on their academics here and I feel like the kids have absolutely bought into that, they help each other. It's cool to do school. Along with being a Top 40 academic team, we also have about a 99 percent graduation rate. I'm very proud of the honor for all the hard work in the classroom.

bc.net: Last week you had a chance to host the National Fastpitch All-Star team and your team lost 10-1 but was able to score on them which only one other team had been able to do in the previous seven games.
KR: It was an honor to have the caliber of players in here as the NPF All-Star team. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for our kids and the community. Our kids were really excited about playing the best of the best.

One of the things we've been working on really hard with our kids this fall is to try to stay focused pitch-by-pitch no matter who we're playing not let it rattle us and just start playing to what we believe is our ability level and really trying to get better under pressure. We did give up 10 runs, five were earned and that was after eight days of practice. We didn't start practice right away because we didn't know whether the game was going to be approved or not and we only have the 30 day window that we can play in the fall. So as soon as the game got approved we had about eight days of practice. We're definitely not in our groove yet but that's to be expected because we definitely don't want to peak too early. But it was definitely an honor to have that caliber of player here and for the younger ones in Las Cruces to have an opportunity to see as well.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the two games you played in the WAC Tournament?
Kathy Rodolph: I think any time you come out and score eight runs you expect to win and I feel like our pitching just came up a little bit short. Our hitters did a great job of battling and staying in there, we've just got to find a way to make stops when we need them.

bc.net: The second game, against Boise State, started out a lot like the first game against San Jose State but you were able to battle back and get the lead before losing the lead again. What did you talk about with your team after they had come back to take the lead?
KR: We were so disappointed in the night before and we felt like we had hopped out ahead but then we also felt like we didn't continue to make a push. Against San Jose that's what we reminded them. We had gotten a lead the night before but not continued. Sometimes when you score so much early your'e trying to hold on to it instead of continuing to play and so I felt like the kids really responded mainly because of the night before and knew that our backs were against the wall and we were going to have to push back every time they scored and I felt like we did a good job.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your team lost the first game on Friday against San Jose State in a similar manner to which you've lost a lot of your games this year, by one run. How difficult was it to lose the game that way and what was the mood of the team afterwards as you were preparing for the doubleheader on Saturday?
Kathy Rodolph: We went back to the hotel that night and we catered in dinner and we just had a team only night and had a meeting about an hour later and just talked about all the things that we felt like we had done really well in that game. There was a lot more that we'd done right than we'd done right so we just wanted to stay very positive, stay very aggressive and just capitalize on a couple things we maybe didn't in game one. We came out on day two very determined and I felt like pretty much the whole weekend, except the end of the first game, we played great defense, Carissa did a great job in the circle of really keeping them off balance and we had some big hits when we needed them.

bc.net: The first game of the doubleheader, you clinched your in the tournament and in the bottom of the seventh you got maybe one of the biggest double plays in the history of Aggie softball which effectively ended their chances of beating you in that game.
KR: Alex Newman in the circle is an outstanding fielder. She's the kind of kid that doesn't seem to get too high or too low. It was definitely a shot, a comebacker to her and she just very poised, fielded and got us out of it.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the weekend and getting a huge sweep over Utah State to keep your WAC Tournament hopes alive?
Kathy Rodolph: I feel like we came out kind of tight on Friday in that first game and definitely had to go the distance to take care of it. There's been some amazing long balls hit this year but definitely none bigger than Brittany's in the ninth. It was a great weekend for us and gave us life again. We're definitely excited and ready to head out to San Jose.

bc.net: You've talked a lot in the past few weeks about how your team has been playing incredibly well but not getting the wins to show for it and had not been getting a few breaks to go their way. The three run inning in the bottom of the sixth of the first game when you tied it up, Utah State committed some errors and your team was able to capitalize on those mistakes.
KR: I said all along that we've been playing really hard and that we just hadn't gotten the breaks that we needed and because we were playing hard we were able to force some things to go our way. We were definitely not in a mental state to where we were just kind of hanging on, we were definitely over the last two weeks gaining momentum, playing hard, playing well and playing together and it definitely paid off this weekend.  Continue Reading This Post >>