Every practice or every game, our young players are seeing a new situation. It's very important to play the games, to make corrections and to name a few things that we did well.

It's a compact season. We play 18 games, and between games and practice, you have to get a lot done in a short period of time.

We almost didn't even have a field to play games on. We don't really even have a practice field.

I always felt we needed to play more in games and even in practice. As a veteran, I also realize you want to go into the season healthy. That's why I'm glad it's the coach's job.

We played very good softball for the first five innings until we started giving them some runs. Give credit to Gutierrez. She's a great pitcher. She's in her third year, our pitcher didn't throw at all last year.

This is what you talk about; this is why you practice every day ? to play in big games like this. We fought through (a poor third quarter) and now we're Western Conference champions.