May 20, 2006
Iowa Head Coach Gayle Blevins
“I’m extremely proud of our team, it’s tough to get three runs down when they jumped on us for the homerun there early and then another two-run homerun, they scored everything by the long ball. It’s tough to be in a hole like that and it’s a position we’ve had a little bit of difficulty with I would say late season on, but today I saw a lot more fire and a lot more determination to get out of that, and I’m very proud of the effort of our team. I think we’ve had a great season and I’m real proud of these two young women that are sitting next to me. Our senior class has done a super job for us this year, it’s a tough way to finish, obviously you’re at home and you want to have a chance to continue playing, and it’s difficult to be in this position to be out of the tournament at this point. Our fans were absolutely wonderful today as they were yesterday; we appreciate everything they have done. It’s just hard to have the season come to a finish here, but it certainly wasn’t through a lack of effort, I felt our kids worked really hard to try to get right back into the ball game.”
On Brittany Weil falling behind early in the count…
“The zone was a little tough, so it was trying to figure out the zone. That makes it a little bit harder, when you’re trying to figure out how to work, and that takes a little while for a pitcher to try to make those adjustments.”
How did Illinois State compare today to when the two teams met earlier in the season?
“I felt Birk threw a great game. We watched last night as she was pitching against Cal, a three or four hitter, gave up one run in the first inning. That says something to you right there, because that’s a very fine Cal team and you saw what they did today against Nebraska. She’s much improved, I believe, over the first part of the season when we saw her, but it’s not unusual, I feel as if I have seen their staffs make a lot of progress through the year.”
Iowa Sophomore Summer Downs
On her part in the Hawkeyes’ sixth inning rally… “I think everybody was just going for it, we know that we like to score later in the innings. With two outs, we do real good with two out rallies, and I just went up to bat knowing that we were coming down to the end and I finally got something started.”
Iowa Senior Stacy May
On this being her last game as a Hawkeye… “It’s disappointing knowing that we got to host and we went 0-2, so that’s obviously really disappointing for our senior year. I’m glad that we did get to host, but the thing about it is that we didn’t play poorly, maybe that makes it a little more disappointing, we came out here and we played well and we just didn’t win.”