29 Quotes by Linda Kalafatis

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.