Nebraska's Billie Andrews reflects on offensive showcase to open Big Ten tournament play

It was a banner day for Nebraska shortstop and star Billie Andrews as the Cornhuskers bested No. 5 seed Minnesota, 11-2, to advance to the Big Ten tournament semifinals. Andrews led the charge with a pair of home runs, including a blast to end the game via the run rule in the 5th inning.

In that at-bat, Andrews came up to the plate with a pair of runners on the basepaths and Nebraska leading, 8-2. She said she was actually trying to be patient, but Andrews took the first pitch of the at-bat out to end the game, 11-2.

“Yeah I was just looking for a pitch I could drive,” Andrews said. “I was honestly thinking ‘Be patient and find a good pitch that I can drive’ and it came the first pitch and I was just, I was ready to attack.”

And as Nebraska embarks on the postseason tournament, the Cornhuskers have taken a loose, confident feel with them.

“I think we’ve just been, throughout the whole season we’ve played a pretty hard schedule and we’ve been in situations where we need to bring our emotions down and I think we just did a pretty good job today,” Andrews said. “Just staying pitch to pitch and just attacking every pitch as its own and shoutout to Sarah Harness, she threw a really great game. And our entire offense just, we came out and we attacked and it came out on our side.”

That closeness and camaraderie among the Cornhuskers showed up seconds later, as Andrews answered a question from the Big Ten Network broadcast booth and was swarmed by her teammates coming to celebrate.

“Yeah our team has gone through so much perseverance throughout the season. We’ve had a handful of girls go down and if someone goes down, it’s next woman up and every person on our team contributes to us in a very important way and it doesn’t matter what happens, we’re all going to come together,” Andrews said, as her teammates mobbed her, wrapping up the interview.

Nebraska coach Rhonda Revelle was pleased with how her team came out of the gates

And more than the results, Revelle was pleased with how her team was going about things. In a brief interview on Big Ten Network in the top of the fourth inning, with Nebraska up 4-1 after a big bottom of the third, Revelle raved about her squad’s energy and enthusiasm in the postseason.

“You know, it’s not so much what we’re telling them, it’s how they’re playing,” Revelle said. “They’re just playing with great spirit, they’re playing loose and playing for each other. Softball’s fun. Softball’s fun and it’s postseason, it’s a fun time of year. So I love the fact that they’re free and they’re just going for it.”

That intensity, energy and looseness led to the Cornhuskers exploiting all the possible opportunities early, both on the base paths and on defense. And the runs came by virtue of a pair of home runs.

Revelle was pleased with her team exploiting every possible margin, and praised their unrelenting, unceasing nature.

“Everything matters, there are no little things,” Revelle said. “I will tell you, the one thing about this team that they’ve done all year is they just keep going, they just keep playing hard and you can hopefully see that they have a lot of joy when they’re playing, and that’s all a coach can hope for.”