SALISBURY POST-GAME QUOTES:

Salisbury head coach Margie Knight on what she would have said before the game if she had have been told her team would commit as many errors as it would produce hits and still defeat Cortland: “I would have said that’s crazy.”

Knight on the game-saving catch by freshman right fielder Casey Zaino: “I actually think the key play was the play before the catch when she backed up the play at first base and threw out the tying run at the plate. Maybe that pumped her up a little bit. She just gave credit to her center fielder [Jen Cahall] when she said that [Cahall] had her backed up, so she knew she could go for the catch. With that type of confidence in [Cahall], she was able to lay out, because not only did I think the ball was down, I thought it was in the gap. What a super catch for Casey. It was one of the best catches I’ve ever seen as a college coach, certainly under that type of pressure makes it even more spectacular.”

Zaino on the final catch that preserved the Salisbury victory: “I thought I had a good jump on it. Since I’ve become an outfielder [after originally being an infielder], I felt like I was a little slow at first, but now I have my feet under me and I’ve gotten a step ahead in terms of judging fly balls. I knew I was going to catch it. I was ready. It wasn’t going in the gap.”

Knight on Cortland head coach Julie Lenhart’s decision not to attempt to sacrifice the tying run to third base in the seventh inning following a leadoff double: “I personally like to bunt. I’m not going to second-guess [Cortland head coach] Julie [Lenhart], because she knows her team better than I do. She knows how hot her hitters are, and she knows what the young ladies did who were coming up later in the line-up. A lot of us use an out to get somebody to second, but I understand her not bunting.”

Knight on the Salisbury combined pitching performance of senior Stacy Davis and sophomore Kelsey Mills: “I thought Stacy [Davis] did exactly what I was hoping for. She kept us in the game and did a nice job. People had to earn their way on because she gave no free passes. When we got the lead and they were coming through their order for the second time, I thought we would make a change and use Kelsey [Mills] who is a different style pitcher who throws differently than Stacy. It was a gutsy performance because they had bases loaded at least once and two runners on another time. We’ve talked about getting ahead in the count, and tomorrow we get another opportunity to work on that. The two of them combined threw the Cortland hitters off just enough to get out of there with a win.”

Sophomore right-hander Kelsey Mills on her reaction to the ball off the bat on Zaino’s game-saving catch: “You hope for the best, but I have so much confidence in my fielders, that I knew that either way [Zaino] was trying her hardest and [Cahall] would be there to back her up if she didn’t come up with the catch. When you watch a play like that it gives you chills. I can’t even describe that play.”

SUNY CORTLAND POST-GAME QUOTES:

Head Coach Julie Lenhart on the game: “I just think that the game revolves around little things, whether it’s the inches of a base hit or a catch. We played better today, but maybe you just get greedy or you just don’t like to lose. There’s a sharpness that you need when you get to the championship level. Defense many times is going to win a championship. You just want perfection when you’re here, but it’s tough to be perfect.”

Lenhart on her decision not to attempt to sacrifice the tying run to third in the seventh inning following a leadoff double: “There were a lot of thoughts at that time because of who was up [to bat]. At that point, defensively we had made a switch for a different catcher, and that was the position that was up. It was a choice of whether to sacrifice perhaps the defensive portion to allow a better offensive player to hit who also is a very good bunter. All of those millions of thoughts were running through my mind, and I just thought that we had a runner in scoring position and on a base hit, we were going to score from second or third. I just felt like it was a time to hit rather than bunt.”

Lenhart on the game-saving catch by Salisbury’s Casey Zaino: “That was a championship game catch. It was a great catch, and even before that, to be in a position when the overthrow at first, when we tried to score the runner from second, those are decisions where you go with your gut every call you make. You win some, and you lose some, and we lost that one.”

Lenhart on the pitching performance of junior right-hander Katie Finch: “It’s no secret, when Katie steps out there she is ready to throw, and the umpire kept her at pace. She had to make an adjustment, and I think she did okay with that. It does change what she likes to do. She pitched fine, and we don’t expect 12 strikeouts when you get to this level of play. Defense is going to win in it, because defense wins championships. She’s a little more comfortable when she has a little faster pace.”

Lenhart on not scoring after having the bases loaded and no outs in the fifth inning: “We had several opportunities with runners in scoring position. If we just could have gotten one hit. It’s always nice to score early, and we did that, but they came right back and tied it. But we came back so many times, but we just couldn’t get one timely hit. It was not a lack of effort. We just didn’t get a timely hit.”

Lenhart on the returning team next year: “We’re going to have a significant senior class next year, and they are very good leaders. They’re great individuals, and with our underclassmen, we have are looking forward to a very promising year next season. But those one run games that we won this year could just as easily go the other way. It takes a lot, and every team goes through weird things that happen. You just can’t predict the future, but having this game back with the taste in their mouth in which we just didn’t finish, I think it will give us a good jump start for next year.”