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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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