Everything Ashley Chastain Woodard said after South Carolina's regional win over Elon

Following a 5-2 win over Elon to begin regional play, South Carolina head coach Ashley Chastain Woodard spoke to the media after the game. Here’s everything she had to say.

Opening statement

“Obviously, a great night for the Gamecocks. The crowd was awesome. Thought the atmosphere was wonderful. We got off to a slow start a little bit there in the first and the second, but I thought the offense looked really good in the bottom of the first. So I think right away we stayed confident and we trusted the plan, and obviously had a big hit from Rodi. Rodi doing Rodi things. So really happy with it.

“I thought that Jori’s 5.1, six strikeouts, obviously, one hit, no runs scored. It was the performance we needed from her. We’re going to challenge her to have those performances the rest of the way. And I thought she looked really sharp and really good. So overall, a great night for us. Looking forward to tomorrow.”

How much does having a packed house like you had today boost your confidence going through the seven innings?

“It helps a lot, kind of puts wind in our sails. It gives us momentum from the start. Our crowd has gotten progressively better and better as the year has gone on. So I appreciate everyone beating the heat today and toughing it out with us, but it makes a world of difference. It’s the reason that we were so excited about being able to host. Playing in front of your home fans and having a home field advantage is huge. And the success, I mean, if you look at the teams that host that progress week to week in postseason, it’s really high.”

With North Florida tomorrow, they’ve obviously got Allison Benning with her 19 homers and 25 wins in the circle. What kind of player is that to scout for on both ends of the field?

“I mean, she, I think, is from Minnesota, went to Oregon, and ended up in North Florida. So an interesting journey. But we’ve watched a lot of film on her through the week. And obviously, today, we were focused on Elon, and we have some experience with Virginia. So I think, this is the team that, as a staff, we had to dig into, I think, a little bit on the side. And we obviously watched them come from behind and beat Virginia game one, but we didn’t talk about that at all, like rolling in from our off-field warm-up to on-field warm-up. I mean, the girls knew that they obviously won the game, pulled it out, but she’s good. She has a lot of talent. So I think if we figure it out, we’ll have a lot of success. I would expect that we would see her, but you never know.”

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Probably not the outing that Nealy Lamb or you wanted. What was your message to her when you took her out of the game there?

“For softball, you get the free re-entry on the starter. So she could have come back into the game. So we really encourage them, if we feel like there’s a chance at all that they could see the field again, to stay really mentally engaged in it. So I just kind of picked her up and pumped her up. I mean, obviously, never the goal to be pulled 1.2, we’d like to stretch her out just a little bit longer. We were going to Jori either way. We just wanted to get a few more outs from Nealy, but I think she’ll be better. I mean, I just keep reminding her of the outing that she had against Alabama the last weekend of the regular season here in front of our fans. I mean, that’s the kind of Neely that we need, and she’ll find it. She’ll figure it out.

“It’s a big stage. It’s a big stage, and Nealy is still really young. Jori’s got a lot of experience, Sam’s got a lot of experience, and we’re asking Nealy to do something that she’s not done before. So there’s just going to be a little bit of growing pains, I think, along the way with her, but we believe in her. I even went in the locker room, I think the first thing I said was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to keep calling your name. You’ve got to give us some innings throughout the postseason,’ because we’re better with her than without her.”

How big was Jori Heard’s outing, knowing that you could keep Sam Gress fresh for the rest of this weekend?

“Yeah, it was huge. And I think they know that once I saw Jori, obviously get that third out to end the inning, that, you know, was a little bit of leverage there for Elon, and then the way she looks coming back out for the fresh inning the next inning. My gut told me we weren’t going to need Sam, but obviously, Sam would be the one that we would go to next, probably before we would re-enter Nealy.

“But it’s huge. And I think she knows that. I mean, Jori’s stuff is good. It’s really good. It was really good tonight. It was really good game one against Alabama at the SEC Tournament. And so I think she feels good. She looks fresh. She was throwing really hard tonight, and she was throwing both sides of the plate. It’s really good that they both are doing really well, but it’s huge. It’s huge to keep Sam in the dugout and not be able to use her. We had hoped for that as a staff going into tomorrow.”

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