Our team is still based primarily on pitching and defense. This is just a bonus for us. We have the same philosophy that we've always had. Sometimes you're just able to hit the ball hard — and hit it in the air.

There's a lot of excitement around here with us coming off the national title, but this is a new team and a new season, so we have to put our past accomplishments behind us and approach this as a new start. Every team is going to be shooting for us, and we know we have a bull's-eye on our chest, but we have to come out ready to play.

Overall our defense has been a general constant for us. We've only given up more than 50 points in one or two games. Certainly, we could still improve at it.

Credit their defense. They were playing pressure defense and forced us to take some hurried shots early.

Their defense caused us to make a lot of turnovers, but I felt like we had come a long way. Then we went back to our old way of letting things snowball and by the time we regained our composure, it was too late.

The defense stepped it up when we needed them to and they did a great job for us,