Our defense was good overall and the seven hits we had are the most we've had in a while.

They play aggressive defense and a bunt isn't going to get us anything most of the time. It may move a runner along, but we didn't have enough runners to move along.

Thompson pitched with a lot of control and kept us off stride all game long. We played a solid game and only struck out four times, we just couldn't get a run across the plate.

(Thompson) has got a lot of good stuff and always pitches tough against us. We faced her three times last year and she always did well. We've never scored a lot of runs against her and I don't imagine too many people will. (She has) control and change of pace, and that's always difficult. You've got 40 feet to decide if it's going fast, slow, up, down ? it's just a tough sport.

This was a potent offense, but our defense made some nice plays and kept hitting hard. I was really happy to see that we kept playing them tough in the second half. Stagg has been known in the past for tough defenses, and I think it will be the same this year.

We took some risks on defense and that may have been why we rushed some things on offense. We got out of our offensive flow, but we won and that's what counts.