(Findlay's) sister (Angela) is coming here next year, so I told Hutch I want to red shirt so I can play with her, too.

That (championship) opened up a lot of new doors. It was exciting to play in Canada and Spain for the USA Elite Team. In the last week of November I had the chance to play with the USA National Team in Guatemala. Basically, it was the Olympic team. I pitched two and one-half games. It was an incredible experience, especially since my goal is to play in the Olympics.

And Samantha isn't the only one who performed for us as a freshman. (Outfielder) Alessandra Giampaolo is back, too, and you can already see that they, as sophomores, have raised their games a level.

We have a good group back,

The good news about freshmen is there's always room for improvement,

I could have probably raised them in L.A. and they would have been great and had so many things at their fingertips and been exposed to so many things. But we travel a lot, so I don't think that moving out of town is sheltering the girls at all. Maybe protecting them a little bit more, trying to prolong their youth.