May 18, 2001
Box Score|Recap|NCAA Regionals
Nebraska Head Coach Rhonda Revelle
Q. Opening statement about the game?
A. I think that today's game was just a really good softball game, no matter how you slice it, we had some drama, some great defensive plays, some great execution under pressure. It was a game that was back and forth, U of P is an excellent ball team, they're well coached, they've got a lot of seniors leading the way. It was just a tough heartfelt ballgame - these are the ones they call dogfights. From the first inning we knew that both teams were ready to do battle, nobody was going to give an inch, and you really have to respect that.
Q. After the seventh did you like the emotional chances you had?
A. When you have an inning like that and you come away with nothing we had to switch the momentum, I think our team knows that too, we've switched the momentum in our case. We were still in the ball game, we had a lot of respect for U of P and what they could do and I thought we reset real well, we came up and got a big first out - we hung tough in there.
Nebraska Player Amanda Buchholz
Q. How did you feel facing (Cindy) Ball [pitcher for Pacific]?
A. I think facing her was a, throughout the whole game we tried to kind of counter what she was throwing at us and she came back with some different stuff that we weren't expecting. I respect her as a pitcher because she did pitch a great game, it was hot out there and the strike zone was a little tight at times, so I feel she deserves a lot of respect.
Q. What did you feel coming up in the eighth, after the way the seventh went?
A. I feel after the seventh inning, getting shutdown by their defense and pitching, we knew that it was going to be a fight to the end, they came out and got a runner on base. Coming up for us in the eighth inning, we just had to hang in there and keep pushing through - I knew that this was the perfect opportunity for me, I was just going for another basehit.
Nebraska Player Cindy Roethemeyer
Q. What does winning this game do for you guys?
A. I think it gives us a lot of confidence, knowing that we're playing good softball and knowing that tomorrow's going to be another dogfight.
Pacific Head Coach Brian Kolze
Opening Statement: There's a lot of cliches you can use, but I'm awfully proud of how the team played. My hat goes off to Nebraska. You have three pitchers out there that threw awesome today. You had two teams that got themselves out of a lot of jams. It came down to a base hit. That's part of it. I told the team we can't hang our heads, we're still in it. I told them I'd rather them feel this way than losing a game by three or four runs and feel like they never gave themselves a chance. We haven't lost a one-run game all year until today. It makes it tough because we left so much out on the field.
Q. This team has played well all year, but there was a very costly error and unearned run in the fifth inning...
A. I told the team - it was an aggressive situation. The only problem is at this level, these teams are so balanced, that there is so little margin of error. One pitch, one at bat, one play, one thing is not why we lost this game. I want them to realize that they did everything they could. It's very disheartening, but the sun will come out tomorrow and we're still playing.
Pacific Player Cindy Ball
Q. How much do you have left after a game like this?
A. Left in me? All the way to the end. Just like all of us. My team picks me up, all 15 girls and coaches.
Pacific Player Adrienne Ratajczak
Q. What do you do to shake a game like this off?A. I think we're okay. We played hard, we went out there and played a really great game. There's nothing we can complain about. We went out there and did the best we could do. I'm so proud to wear this uniform.