Nikki was on her game. She really took control of that mound. She was hitting every single pitch we called and (catcher) Brittany Johnston kept her calm. I'm so proud of what she did and so proud of what we did.

Scoring runs has been the key for our season. You can see we're not scoring runs efficiently. It doesn't matter how great your defense looks. You've got to produce runs. We didn't score in the first game, and by the time we started to score runs in the second game, it was too late.

We're learning every single game we play. I knew we'd have our growing pains, but I keep feeling like we're getting closer to where we're going. These girls realize they have to work harder.

This is what I've told them what I saw in them the whole season.