Everything Ashley Chastain Woodard said following South Carolina softball's Friday double-header wins

South Carolina head softball coach Ashley Chastain Woodard spoke with the media after the No. 20 Gamecocks beat Louisville 9-1 and Boston 6-2 on Friday at Beckham Field in the Carolina Classic.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Opening Statement

“That was a great day. A lot of offense, super proud of the offense holistically. You know, we had 10 hits in that game, had a lot of hits in the first game. Probably the most impressive stat of the day is [that] we only struck out twice in two games. We didn’t strike out in game one against Louisville and then only had two K’s against Boston. So, I thought it was a great day offensively.

“I thought we strung a lot of things together, played clean defense, and, you know, it was a really good outing from everyone that we put out in the circle. Emma (Friedel) looked great. She had six K’s tonight. I thought Jori Heard looked really well, looked really good coming into a bases-loaded, two-out situation, kind of jammed with Louisville in game one. Holistically, I thought it was a great day for the team. You know, it’s hard to win, especially hard to win two games back-to-back. So, really proud of them and definitely going into day two of the tournament with a lot of momentum, I feel like, on our side. So it’s a good day.”

For Ansley (Bennett) to come in there at the end and get that save. It was kind of a tough situation, just could you speak on her coming in there?

“Yeah, I thought it was a good moment for her. You know, and KG (Favors), she got, I think, an out and then just kind of lost the strike zone a little bit. And then just to see a freshman pick up a freshman, I think is a really good sign. And Ansley, we were coming up on a couple lefties in the order. Ansley throws well against lefties, so I thought it was a good spot for her. You know, we still had a lot of leeway there with the game. I thought we were still in control of what was happening.

“But we just want to put them in those situations now, to really learn a lot about them, to see how they are going to respond, to help them learn and grow. So those moments later in the season they have felt before, when the stakes maybe feel a little bit bigger, a little bit higher, especially when we start conference. So, I was proud of her. You know, Ansley’s a ballplayer. She can do a lot of different things, and she’s a winner. She’s won a lot, you know, coming into the program, so there’s a lot of trust there with her.”

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Going back to the first game, you were talking about pitchers picking up for each other. To go from Julie (Kelly) to Josie (Marron) and to Jori and how they picked each other up, what can you say about that?

“Yeah, it was a triple-J day. That’s what I called it, going into it. We planned for Julie to open the game, obviously, and that Josie was going to bridge to Jori in higher leverage. So, as far as the order goes, it was kind of planned, and we executed the plan.

“I think Josie went out on the field a little bit earlier than we expected. You always want your open to kind of extend you into the third or the fourth inning, it’s always nice. But I thought Julie did a good job, and I think it was the right matchup in the moment for Josie. It was just a little earlier in the game than we planned for, which pushes Jori up some. But, you know, Jori’s our ace, and anytime you can get her on the field in a really pressured situation, there’s a lot of trust she’s going to get the job done. She’s really experienced at this point. So, I thought, bases loaded, two outs, there’s no one we want more to come in the game than Jori. So it worked out for us.

“You know, and we have seven. We have a lot of depth in the bullpen this year. It was something that we wanted to focus on in the offseason building a team. So, I think it’s a strength of ours that we have a lot of options and we have a lot of decisions to make as far as matching up and, you know, who pairs well in different parts of the order. And I’m learning how to use that, you know. Like, this is my first time going through preseason tournaments with this team.

“So, I’m learning how they’re going to respond and how to use our depth to our advantage. (Pitching coach Zack Parsons) and I, we make those decisions together. And, you know, I thought we made the right call in the moment obviously to make sure that we kept the momentum on our side.”

In that first game as well, there wasn’t very many hits in the first couple of innings, but that was a lot of really hard-hit outs. Did you feel like it was coming, up until the fifth inning there?

“Yeah, I did. We focus on something called CPAs, which is competitive plate appearances, so that really keeps them in the process of what they’re doing, not necessarily the results of their at-bats. And there’s so many different ways you can get a CPA. You can get out and get a CPA, so I felt like we were really stringing a lot of CPAs together, and typically when our offense does that, it’s just a matter of time before we start scoring runs. So, I felt that they stayed very process-oriented, they trusted the plan that we had. We were hitting the ball hard.

“You know, it’s funny. Tate (Davis) won the game on a little bloop hit behind second, and it’s like sometimes, yeah, she didn’t square it up, you know, to her standard. She’s like, ‘I didn’t hit that very hard.’ But sometimes that’s how it goes, and you have to celebrate it all, you know, when you figure out how to get the hit in the moment. So, I thought it was coming, just being patient and keep having really good CPAs and good at-bats, you know, and then you either knock the starter out or you get the next person on the field, and usually momentum like that is the difference in the game offensively. So, I was proud of them. I thought they had a great day.”

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After dropping a couple last weekend, to get off to a good start, you scored a lot of runs today, how does that feel?

“Yeah, it feels good. I think it gives them a lot of confidence, a lot of belief, a lot of, you know, just to continue to trust in who they are and how good they know they can be. You know, last week we dropped opening night against a great Virginia Tech offense, a lot of respect for their program, they’re a top 15 team, in my opinion, right now. And then to lose the second game against them, it was definitely kind of the cloud of the weekend.

“And personally, I felt like after we lost those two games, we were already 20 games into the season. It was pretty, like, down emotions internally, in our building. Expectations are high, so I understood why that was. But I think we had to center ourselves on the perspective that it was just the first weekend, you know, and we did not go into this journey together not expecting not to lose, if I’m saying that correctly.

“So, I mean, we knew that we were going to stumble. It just happened to be the first night. We had a chance to win both games, you know, and holistically on the weekend, we played two bad innings and it cost us two games. But again, it’s a really good team, which that’s how the game is at the highest level. So, you know, I think we learned a lot. We had a lot of great conversation about some things, about who we wanted to be holistically as a program, what we could learn from those incidents that I have to believe will really pay off for us over the next few weeks as we face some really good opponents.

“You know, and it’s just a part of playing a really long year. A lot of games, that’s a long season. So, definitely glad to get these two in the right column, to start the weekend off better than we did last weekend. And, you know, just giving us a ton of momentum going into next week, which if you look at our schedule, next week is, it’s a tough week for us on the road as far as matchups and opponents, which is what we want. It’s great, but winning thise weekend is going to help us, you know, just kind of get on the right foot into next week.”

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