Q&A with Linda Kalafatis – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/21/2005 12:00:00 AM | Softball
Sept. 21, 2005
OhioStateBuckeyes.com sat down with Ohio State head coach Linda Kalafatis last week prior to the first day of the Buckeyes’ fall practice schedule.
Q: Coach, this looks like it will be a fall season where you are going to get to see everyone on your active roster play quite a bit.
A: We’re a little tight in numbers, so there will be plenty of playing opportunities, but we like to have everyone play a lot of innings in the fall. You get to see kids at different spots and this year we have two freshmen pitchers who need to get acclimated to the college game.
Q: Even though it’s the fall season, your program seems busy as ever.
A: Once we get started, it’s pretty hectic since we’re a quarter school and we have less time to prepare than semester schools, but it’s an exciting time of year. We’re excited to see each other again and to welcome the new Buckeyes. We need to start developing our team personality and character for the 2006 season.
Q: Any specific positions you need to focus on this fall?
A: We certainly lost the contributions of some pretty good players from our 2005 team. That will give new opportunities for some players and give bigger roles to others. We’re coming off a year in which we were very strong offensively and we certainly hope to build on those numbers. The addition of (freshmen pitchers) Kim (Reeder) and Courtney (Pruner) will help us.
For the most part our lineup will remain the same. The biggest hole is replacing Karisa Evans at one of the top spots. We need to see Christina Douglas behind the plate. It’s been a few years since she’s had game time at that position. We look forward to having (assistant coach) Ali’s influence in our program and we’re glad to have Kristi DeVries back and continuing to work in our program. We need to find who can play shortstop, first of all. Jennifer Johnson had a great year defensively at shortstop. We have to find an answer at that spot. We need to find out what can our freshmen can do and in what kind of capacity they can contribute. We need to see some of our veterans like Nicole Lancaster, Brittany Vanderink and Stacy Hibma step up. We need to acclimate our freshmen pitchers and have them adjust and find out what to do in the offseason to prepare for the regular season. That will be critical.
If we continue to build our offense, and with a deeper pitching staff, there’s no reason why we can’t think pretty good things for the 2006 season.
Q: The start of a new season is always exciting, but you are especially looking forward to 2005-06.
A: We all, as a coaching staff, are really excited about this year and how we can build on this for the future. There are upperclassmen who are ready to contribute more and we had four verbal commitments from recruits before the summer ended, so I think we are in a really good spot. We’re anxious to get things started and we’re looking for a lot of success this year. The challenge is that we’ve had a taste of playing at a high level and we need to get back there and stay there.
We’re talking about a new stadium again and we always want to bring in good athletes who do well academically, too. We have good people working for our program. If our girls work hard and give all their effort, all the ingredients are there.
### Go Bucks! ###
