Credit their defense. They were playing pressure defense and forced us to take some hurried shots early.

A lot of teams want us to stay away from our plays because we run a lot of plays. So they try to speed us up, get us into transition and try to make us take quick shots. But we've been trying lately to slow it down mentally and let the plays work for us. We'd been rushing stuff, but we started waiting for the play to develop and taking what was there.

Overall our defense has been a general constant for us. We've only given up more than 50 points in one or two games. Certainly, we could still improve at it.

Their defense caused us to make a lot of turnovers, but I felt like we had come a long way. Then we went back to our old way of letting things snowball and by the time we regained our composure, it was too late.

Our team is still based primarily on pitching and defense. This is just a bonus for us. We have the same philosophy that we've always had. Sometimes you're just able to hit the ball hard — and hit it in the air.

The defense stepped it up when we needed them to and they did a great job for us,