LSU softball head coach Yvette Girouard and her staff met with the media Tuesday to preview the 2006 season. Following are quotes gathered Tuesday from Girouard, assistant coach Lori Osterberg and associate head coach James DeFeo.
LSU HEAD COACH YVETTE GIROUARD
Opening Statement…
“I have good news. I just came back from the doctor’s office this morning and the gas bubble is gone out of my eye, so I will be able to fly. I’ll have to wear those stylish sunglasses for some time because the eye is still dilated, but I’m good to go and actually coached the team last weekend in our ‘Meet the Tigers’ day out at the park.
“We’re very excited about the season. Invariably, though, I’m going to be asked at some point about last year. Well, I really only have one comment on that, and I’m going to follow the great communicator who was the predecessor before me with a statement that goes as such, ?It’s time to move on. You understand me? It’s time to move on.’ And really that is the present that we live in with our team. I’m glad you laughed at that because I don’t have a Mississippi State joke, which I know Smoke (Laval) will. So, that’s my attempt at humor today.”
“The mindset of this team is to live in the present and has been since the day we met with them before they left for the summer. To a person they came in to the coaching staff in their one-on-one meetings and they said to do whatever you need to do. We don’t want to live through this again. We had one of our players walk in, a sophomore that I’m going to talk a little bit more about later, but she walk into our office the first day she was back at school and said, ?You know, coach, I never want to talk about last year again. I’ve drawn up a contract, I want you to look at it and I want the whole team to sign it.’ We just smiled broadly because we were all on the same page immediately.”
“The greatest thing about sports is there’s always a next year. Really, in our game where you fail more than you ever succeed, you better live in the present. So, from Day 1 this team has been on the same page with the coaching staff. They have been challenged more in the weight room and conditioning than any team since I’ve been at LSU. They’ve met every challenge. We’ve run the mile twice a week and timed it. They’ve done things physically that they never thought their brain could do, and we’re hoping that translated to the field. They have a ton of confidence. It’s a totally different look, and that’s magnified by some of the players. We have great leadership on the team. We have four seniors. We have two captains in Lauren Castle and Stephanie Hill, who have just done a tremendous job of leading this team. But we have some kids in particular who have really stepped up, and it’s magnified the entire atmosphere that’s going out there.
“You’ve got a Leslie Klein, who basically between Skip (Bertman) and my staff, we were basically convincing this kid that she needed to play softball last year after her second knee operation and coming back after four months. Leslie Klein is unbelievable out there right now. She is patrolling center field. She loves softball. She loves this team. She’s in the coach’s office. She’s talking softball. That’s just the glaring difference in that one player who was very influential for us a couple of years ago and really didn’t have a good year last year. It was magnified in a number of things. She’s one. Camille Harris is a senior for us, an outfielder. The lights are burning long at Tiger Park. She’s out there late at night and just taking extra hitting. She wants to make sure she goes out with a bang, and she’s just one of a few whose attitudes are just tremendous. The work ethic, again, has been phenomenal. The kids are ready to play. Everybody’s on the same page. Again, we’ve had tremendous leadership.”
“Our schedule is very advantageous for us the first couple of weeks. We’re home with two tournaments and a couple of double headers sandwiched in between to literally kind of get our feet wet, which is a good thing. The second tournament, the highlight team is the University of Washington, an extremely good Pac-10 team. We’re going to return the favor the following year and go up to Seattle, but they bring a tremendous team in here, and they’ll be the highlight of that tournament. Then we really just jump into the fire. We head out to Palm Springs where we’ll see UCLA, Oregon State and Stanford in the five games we play out there. That’s the cream of the crop in the Pac-10 that we’ll face. The following weekend we head out to Oklahoma to return a trip. The Sooners have been to LSU a couple of times, and it’s our turn to go over there. So, we play them and a very good Troy team, a new Sunbelt (Conference) member now. We’ll be tested early on the road with the best of softball, a ?Who’s Who’ of softball. Then the SEC starts, which we were an eyelash away in the SEC last year from having three teams in the College World Series. The programs are nine years old, and we almost had three teams in the College World Series in nine years. Again, the SEC is just a fabulous league. When the ADs decided that softball was important, they started building facilities and wanting to win, immediately overnight this conference was tremendous.”
“I coach the pitchers and work with the catchers. I’m going to let James (DeFeo) and Lori (Osterberg) come up here later and talk about the infield, the outfield and the hitters. But the person that I spoke about that walked into our office and wanted to sign a contract was Killian Roessner. Killian Roessner has come back a changed woman. She is playing right now as well as Leigh Ann Danos played the last month of the season when we had that magical run in the World Series a couple of years ago. She not only has the presence behind the plate, she’s hitting the ball extremely well. She’s picking off people. She’s got a ton of confidence and she’s handling the pitchers, which, in our game, is just unbelievably important because if the person in the circle is struggling then the entire team is struggling.”
“Emily Turner looks very, very good right now. There’s no question that talent for talent, she’s still probably the most talented pitcher we have on this staff. She has dedicated herself to being a much better player and pitcher for this team. Dani Hofer comes in with tremendous credentials ? the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year. I think the thing that’s going to be the most apparent and glaring aspect of Dani Hofer is her mound presence. Nothing fazes her. If she gets hit, she wants the ball right back in her hand and she’s determined that the next pitch is going to be a better pitch. That’s light years ahead of what we had happening last year in the circle. She’s an intelligent kid. She’s more of the Kristen Schmidt-type of pitcher. She stays ahead and she doesn’t get herself into trouble. She’s not overpowering but she has very good movement. I believe the team really believes in her, and it’s kind of apparent when she’s out there. We still have Megan Jolly, who is, we think, finally healthy. Megan probably pitched three-quarters of the season last year with two cracked ribs, and she gutted it out for us a lot of times. Then there’s Tiffany Garcia, who unquestionably has the best change-up on the staff. They will probably see innings in relief whereas Hofer and Turner will get most of the starts and do a lot of the pitching.”
“Again, we talked about Killian Roessner, I can’t say enough about her. She played women’s ball this summer, and I think she really grew up. Kristen Hobbs is our backup catcher right now. Kristen started for us last year. This is my 30th year of coaching and Kristen is the very first softball player that I’ve ever had that had Tommy John surgery. That’s not something you hear about with the women. She’s projected to return to us hopefully in March or April. Right now she’s filling in; doing everything we’ve asked her to do in that aspect.”
ASSISTANT COACH LORI OSTERBERG
Opening Statement…
“A year ago we were brand new up the middle but with talented players. This year we still have those talented players, but we also have a year of experience. So, our infield is off to a good start. That year of experience, we’re seeing it. They’re demonstrating a lot of confidence and are on the same page. It’s really brought up their game. They are playing well together as an infield unit. At this point we’ve scrimmaged quite a bit with the teams split in half. We’ve beaten up on each other and created a lot of competitiveness within the team. It’ll be good for us to get together, all playing together, in these next few tournaments to build that unifying infield experience that we’ll gain from.”
“Stephanie Hill at first base is in her senior year, her third year starting at first base. She’s a very solid player, consistent and has a great glove and is a great leader on the infield. She’s also very intelligent, which enhances her athleticism on the field. Another senior, Lauren Delahoussaye, will be starting her second year at third base. One of Lauren’s strengths is her cannon for an arm and she also covers a lot of ground. She stays low to her left and right, and she does a good job of using her arm as a weapon on the field. We need to use it to give us more of an edge on the infield when we’re going for those lead outs and taking away the short game.”
“Andrea Smith is in her sophomore year at shortstop. She’s not real typical of a female athlete when you watch her play. She makes throws off the wrong foot, making plays deep in the hole, turning and throwing at full speed in the air. She’s fun to watch, does a good job and is a player who doesn’t make a whole lot of errors. At second base, Vanessa Soto is also a sophomore. She makes consistent plays, routine plays. She moves on the field well and has a good understanding of the game. Behind her we have Shannon Stein, a transfer from Corpus Christi. She’s become a real versatile player. We’re playing her a lot at second base and she’s pushing Vanessa. Probably the one thing defensively she has over Vanessa is she covers about a foot further to the left and the right. She makes those big plays, but as long as Vanessa is coming through with the RBIs she’s going to maintain that position. We could also use Shannon Stein at third base. She’s very versatile.”
“Behind the plate, we have Killian Roessner. Like Coach Girouard said, she has come back a new woman. She’s kind of like a bow tie on a present with our infield. She wraps it up and really makes us work together as unit. Another newcomer this year is freshman Fallon Fisher. We have her as a backup at first base. Stephanie Hill has taken her under her wing and is teaching her the ropes at first base. She’s doing a great job there, and she could be the next Stephanie Hill.”
ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH JAMES DEFEO
Opening Statement…
“We have a saying for ourselves defensively in the outfield. We like to call ourselves the ‘last line of defense’, but I like to think this year that our outfield is going to be the first line of our offense. We have Leslie Klein coming back and starting in center field. We’re really looking for her to regain her All-America status. I think that’s going to be a big spark and a boost to our offensive line-up. We have Camille Harris who will return to our leadoff spot patrolling left field for us.”
“In right field we have three different people who may start at any one point in time. We have Quinlan Duhon, who led the team in home runs, along with Lauren Castle, who tied with Stephanie Hill last year for the batting title. We also have sophomore Erika Sluss looking to challenge those two people in right. I think we’re going to be going with whoever has the hot bat in right; we’re going to stick with that.”
“I think that we’ll have a lot of pop in our line-up due to those outfielders. I think you’ll see a big, big quality difference in the outfield defensively. We have Leslie coming back healthy and in the best shape she’s been in for quite some time patrolling the outfield. I think that she’s going to make a big difference for us in center field as a communicator and that leadership quality.”
“As far as subs go, we have Dee Dee Henderson, who is pretty much the fastest player on our team. She’ll see some time as our first pinch runner off the bench. Heidi Robin also will be out there running the bases for the Tigers. I think our outfield is one of the strengths of our program right now. I think we have a really good, solid nucleus in the outfield. They have very good communication skills and they can patrol the outfield as good as any we have had. I’d like to think we have great leadership out there with Leslie and Camille talking it up in left and center.”