I have complete confidence in my team that we can win the NIC outright. But I can't say we're in the driver's seat now. Ask me in four more NIC games. On any given night in this conference, anyone can beat you.

It's not that big of a deal to me to beat them for the first time. The big thing is to beat a quality team. It also sends a message we're ready to play with anyone.

I think we have a very strong team. It's just a matter of our players getting confidence playing together. We have a lot of players in new positions so it will take some time to get everything together. We'll rely on our pitching early on; that's definitely our strength.