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

Following a 3-0 win over North Florida on Saturday, 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 win. I thought it was a great team win. A lot of big moments from a lot of different players on the squad, which I thought was really special this time of the year. Had a shutout win. Obviously, a really good day in the circle for both Sam and Jori. Really proud of them. Really great performances, specifically from Emma Sellers, who got our dugout card at the end of the game today, and Ella Chancey both sides of the ball.

“I’m just really proud of the performance. It took us a little time to get going. We were talking about it in the dugout, just kind of how we were going to figure out Benning, but I felt like we reset, refocused on the right things there in the middle of the game. That really paid off for us. So really proud of them.”

How do you approach tomorrow with two opportunities to win one game to advance to the Super Regional?

“I don’t think we’ll talk about anything new or anything that we haven’t talked about. At this point, for us, it kind of feels like a series. We’ve played three games, single games a day, for a long time. So we’ll probably approach it like, let’s sweep the series. Obviously, we’ll see who we’re playing later this afternoon, but I don’t think the messaging will be any different.”

Did you get a sense that y’all were about to break through offensively in the late innings?

“Yes. I have good instincts on that stuff, and I knew they were going to break through. I was just urging them to do it as quickly as possible. No, I think it’s really important, you know, we practice what we preach. I try to stay as neutral and calm in the dugout as possible with them. We gathered up, I think it was fourth or fifth or something like that, and just kind of talked about what our focus and intent was on.

“And I honestly felt like we were focused in a little bit too much on Benning itself and just trying to beat her versus like, ‘Okay, what is the game giving us right now? How can we beat the ball? How can we beat the game?’ Just trying to shift our focus. We had some of those conversations there in the game, right before we scored. Great base running by Chloe Lackey coming off the bench there and making that read at third. But yeah, I just, I felt it as how long is it going to take us to do it, but we’ve done it all year. I mean, I’m the biggest fan, and I have the utmost belief that they’re going to figure it out.”

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Did you think Chloe Lackey was going to be able to score there when that ball first dropped, or when did you kind of first realize she could have a chance here?

“I thought on a clean play, she’s probably at third. I think the bobble made Katie round her, and then the throw being off allowed her to score. So I think we definitely capitalized on two mistakes that they made. I think clean play, it’s probably third base.”

Ashley, as a former pitcher yourself, how much do you love seeing the effort from Sam Gress on that play where she made the diving tag on Lauren Brock when she got caught in that pickle?

“I love Sam Gress. I love her heart, competitive spirit, and I have for years. Personally, I feel like every pitch Sam throws, I throw it with her. There’s just a part of our hearts that are connected together at this point. Early in the game, I went out and I challenged her to let go of whatever fear she was holding on to, because I felt that she was a little tight to start the game.

“These are big moments, big games. These guys, there’s a lot on the line. They worked really hard for their whole careers for what’s on the horizon for us. And so I do feel like Sam and I are intertwined in those moments. And I was not surprised that she was the one who dove on the ground to get the out. Karley Shelton said in the dugout after the game, she’s like, ‘Yeah, I gave it up to Sam. I knew we were gonna get the out just by the look in her eyes on the other side of that.’ So, yeah, I’m not surprised. Sam was the person who ended up on the ground. I would prefer it to be one of our defenders.”

How much confidence does it give you with the defense that this team has been playing and the pitching to back things up when it’s slower at the plate?

“Yeah. I mean, I think as long as we play defense and we give ourselves a chance on that side of the ball in the circle, which is really, honestly always the goal for them, we’ve preached that from the beginning of just, you know, as a staff, let’s give our team a chance to win. Whatever that looks like today. It looks like a shutout. Sometimes it doesn’t look like that. But we’ve played great defense all along, and I think months ago, we knew that we could play really good defense, so it gives us a ton of confidence.

“Katie Browder, our associate head coach, reminded the team at the end of the game, saying, ‘Hey, everybody at this point is good. Everyone is good at this point. There are no bad teams. The rest of the way, those guys are probably watching these games on TV.’ So we have to take every pitcher with great intent, great focus, and we have to play really well the rest of the way to get to where we want to go. So the defense and the pitching being elite, I think, is going to give us a good chance the rest of the way.”

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