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There wasn’t too much said of great interest, as it served as more of an introductory press conference than anything else. The one message I was really able to gather was the intense focus by this team on what’s in front of them, right here, right now. Two brief comments by the seniors on one question, and a separate response by head coach Heather Tarr, combined to really drive home the idea that we are only focused on us, our opponent right now, and what we can control:
Question 1: Since the end of last year, your team rallying cry has been to Leave No Doubt: to yourselves, to your opponents, to the selection committee. Once you were awarded the 6th overall seed, how long did you feel like you could enjoy it before moving on and being like “No, now we’ve got to focus on Montana; we’ve got to focus on this weekend.”?
Casey Stangel: “About as long as you can go “YEAHHHHHHHHHH!” (on one breath), and then you’re done.” (Aguilar laughs).
Ali Aguilar: “...I think you could super excited and then end it there.” (Paraphrasing her response here): That was our first goal, but only to achieve our end destination.
Question 2: Outside of this regional, do you think there’s any teams that could surprise some people?
Tarr: I don’t know if I’m being a bad fan, or a bad coach, but I really don’t even know who’s anywhere else (players laugh).
Fresno State plays Michigan in tomorrow’s first game of the double-elimination regional at Husky Softball Stadium at 6 PM on ESPN2. Montana will then play the host Huskies at 8:30 PM or around 30 minutes after the end of the first game (whichever is later) on ESPN3.