BATON ROUGE — LSU softball head coach Yvette Girouard addressed the media Thursday afternoon at the 2004 Baseball/Softball Media Luncheon held in the fifth floor conference room in the LSU Athletics Department. Audio and video of the press conference is now available to members on www.LSUsports.tv. Here is the transcript of the press conference:
Yvette Girouard
LSU Softball Head Coach
“This team is a team of character, as opposed to a team of characters. I know that we talk about the rain appearing at some point in the season at any time. We feel like those rains have probably already occurred for us during our fall training period. We know that our foundation is really strong, and I really, really, really like my team. We don’t have very many numbers, we are fourteen strong right now, but fourteen as good of athletes as I have ever coached. My first season that I took a team to the College World Series, I had thirteen players on that team. All thirteen of those athletes on that team could play any position at any time. I feel like this Tiger Softball team has the same ingredients.
We are coached daily by the premier coach that we have ever had in this program, our leader, Coach Bertman. Coach Bertman coaches the coaches all the time. I think he takes real pride in that, now that he is no longer on the field. With what Coach Saban has done this year, we’ve all become Sabanesque in our talking with our team and our process- oriented goals now.
We’ve only talked to our team about three assets: preparation, sacrifice and effort. I can say unequivocally that I’ve gotten that from fourteen young women everyday at practice. Eight athletes on this team in the fall had over a 3.0 GPA. They were the best physically conditioned team that I’ve ever had returning from a Christmas break. Everyone passed their conditioning test, which tells me that they have prepared, they have sacrificed and they give effort everyday. It’s a team of unity. We had some attrition in the fall. I had some personal loss in my family. I wasn’t here very much but I consider that a strength on this team. Team chemistry is something that every coach–it’s that intangible that they’re always looking for and there’s no question on my mind that this team has it.
Our strengths, not unlike every other previous LSU softball team, lie in pitching and defense. We returned Kristin Schmidt who is a two-time All-American for us on the circle and was just a workhorse for us last year and we can see those kind of results happening for her. And overall, one through nine in our line-up can really run unlike what we had last year when we were pretty much station to station. We had too many people in our line-up that couldn’t do much on the base paths. Even if we tried to hit and run, it still seemed to be too station to station. And I really like that aspect of our team this year.
We worked very hard in the fall in creating offensive opportunities, offensive pressures. I can attribute that to my staff, who worked very hard in the fall. When I say this is a team of character, I want to include my staff in that. Coach James Defeo has been with me five years now and knows the ends and outs of everything and we welcome back to our staff Lori Osterberg, so you’re returning the 2001 National Coaching Staff of the Year. When we talk about character, I start with our staff first and there’s no question in my mind that I have the best staff in the country. So we worked very, very hard in the fall creating offensive opportunities.
The game of fastpitch softball, I think, will have changed again for us. This is my twenty-fourth year on this level. When we introduced the neon yellow ball and started really putting some kind of thought and effort into the performance of our bats, we started seeing balls fly out of the park. I coached for fifteen years and no one ever hit the ball over the fence. When we moved the mound back, when we juiced up the ball, the ball started flying out. We shattered every LSU home run record last year. Now we’re back to a ball with a lower core and the bats have been altered also. So I think we’re going to go back to seeing the game that we saw before, where defense and pitching are at a premium. So that’s one aspect of the game that’s changed.
Overview for us:
Pitching, Kristin Schmidt has just done a phenomenal job for us in her two years here and we expect the same thing this year. Emily Turner is a freshman out of California who I think has the potential to be as good as she really wants to be. I haven’t coached an athlete that has worked this hard ever on her own. She’s a tall, good-looking kid who has all of the God-given tools that a fastpitch pitcher needs–the levers, the strength, the speed, the athleticism. She can play first base for us. She might be the fastest person on our team. She can also swing the stick pretty good, so we’re looking for big things out of her. Lauren Castle was a transfer to us, was a pretty good pitcher in her own right in high school but she didn’t do any pitching in her first year on the collegiate level. She could be looked upon to give us some innings of relief.
Our catcher situation is probably the best since I’ve been here. Leigh Ann Danos is a returning starter for us. She has been hampered with mono. She was released yesterday by the doctor but her strength and stamina is a little bit questionable right now. Kristen Hobbs is a freshman who possesses all of the tools–as good an arm as I’ve ever seen behind the plate. She’s learning the game on this level but we’re very, very pleased with her. She is what you look for in every catcher and she is definitely a giver and not a taker. She has a lot to learn on this level but she’s going to learn it because she is an extremely bright young lady.
First base–we welcome back Leslie Klein. Leslie will see some positional play at first base and in left field. Leslie was slated to be our starting left fielder last year but two weeks before the season began she blew out her knee, her ACL. We welcome her back and she just looks phenomenal anywhere we put her. She might be the best ballplayer we have on our team. We can put her anywhere and she seems to be able to adapt to it immediately. Stephanie Hill, a second year player for us, can man first base. She is an extremely bright, intelligent young woman who’ll swing the stick for us and looks very, very good and of course, Emily Turner can play some first base.
Sara Fitzgerald will man second base. She did a great job for us last year. She might be one of the shortest players on our team but plays as tall as anybody else that we have.
Lauren Delahoussaye, who was clutch for us last year in the SEC Tournament coming off of the bench and getting some game-winning RBIs, will man shortstop. She has a cannon for an arm with the quickest release maybe I’ve ever coached in my tenure and she’s going to do a great job for us at shortstop.
Third base is manned by Julie Wiese, who will be a four-year starter for the Tigers. Julie is student teaching right now, so she has finished her class work and she’s in a classroom everyday with (Kindergarten) through 3 and she seems to be enjoying softball more now than I think I’ve ever seen her. I think that’s going to be very productive for Julie. She’s been a phenomenal player for us but I think she’s truly relaxed and really can have fun out there.
The outfield, I believe, is as good as the outfield we had when we went to the College World Series and I thought that was probably the best outfield that I’d ever had in my tenure as a coach. It’s manned by Camille Harris, LaDonia Hughes, Lauren Castle, Leslie Klein and Amber Brooks, who is a junior college transfer for us. They have tremendous reads off of the bat, can play the angles as quick as any team I’ve ever coached. Tiger Park probably is the biggest softball park in the country. The alleys are bigger than anywhere in the country. The College World Series dimensions are 190, 220, and 190. We’re at 200, 220 at our gaps–no one in the country has a field like ours. So if we can roam this field the way we do, then it will be fun to watch our outfielders play softball.
Utility, we have a young lady, Lauren Uhle, who will probably do a lot a pinch running for us.
The schedule–there’s nothing new there when it comes to LSU Softball. We start off with a bang. The very first weekend we have the number four team in the country coming in here. That’s the University of Oklahoma, who has won a national championship and probably been in the College World Series the last six years–a phenomenal program. They, along with the University of Illinois gave Alabama a run for their money in their regional set-up last year. It’s a young team, but a very, very good team. The second weekend we play Cal-Berkley, who’s the national runner-up and is projected number three in the country right now. So, immediately we’re thrown into the fire with a semi-young team, which ought to prepare us for our conference schedule, which is thirty softball games – the most in college softball, in any conference. We play more conference softball games than anybody in the country. I have tremendous respect for the coaches in the SEC. Of all of the programs, there’s only three original coaches left and softball is only seven years old in the SEC, meaning that these A.D.s have taken the game of softball pretty seriously right away. So you have all these phenomenal coaches, a phenomenal league, and we’re going to show it this year because you’re going to probably see some teams that you haven’t noticed before making a lot of noise in softball. So once again, the SEC is not unlike any other sport–football, basketball, you name it. Our SEC schedule is a very good one and hopefully our out of conference schedule will have prepared us for it.
In a rap-up, what I really, really like about this team is I think that they will always be a team that will try to figure out how to make a situation correct. Meaning, we tell our kids to stay on the field until the umpire tells you to get off. Play until the umpire says, ‘Get off the field. Here comes another game.’ And I think our kids will do that.”