We've been working toward a defense that is more aggressive and gets after people, and some of that showed in this game. It was a pleasant surprise, since season-opening games are so unpredictable.

I don't think we played real well as a defense. We missed a lot of tackles and played over-aggressive. We missed a couple of assignments here and there. We didn't do it consistently enough where it cost us, but we also didn't consistently stop them, either.

We're playing good defense against the set plays. We're just not getting back well on the counter-attacks.

The caliber of play we showed on defense at this time of the year far and away exceeded my expectations.

They kept it close for almost three quarters. They played great defense. They came out feeling pretty good because they played well. This was the first game for most of them.

[Hitting coach Greg] Walker showed us before the game that he gets most of his outs on inside pitches. We were looking for pitches out over the plate and looking to take them up the middle or the opposite way.