Coaches Corner for July 8th: Gabe Dunn, Madrid Softball

With us on Coach's Corner, KWBG, going to talk some matter with softball today. Gabe Dunn joining us as the Tigers will travel to Ogden tonight to get ready for post-season. And I know I asked Reid this question yesterday, Gabe, so I got to be fair and ask you the same thing. I know, A, it's a nice quick trip. We always like a quick trip. He wasn't too concerned the fact that you guys have already played twice during the regular season. I'm guessing you're going to probably agree with that. Yeah, by the time this time of season rolls around, it's one of those. It's always fun to play somebody you never have before, but when you get to this point, it's really a matter of, you're just hoping that you're playing your best game and the opponent is who it is. Now for us, of course, it's the team that we know probably the best out of anybody, so it makes it a little more interesting in that aspect. But it'll be a fun matchup against the team that we respect and we know are good and they're clicking at the right time, too. All right, Gabe, I know you're going to give me a coach answer, but I still got to ask it, is that one of those things when you first see that bracket, you kind of maybe scratch your head a little bit thinking, boy, we had a pretty good season and not to host a first round matchup, or do you just kind of go, okay, here's the bracket, here's what's in front of us, let's get our practice set up? You know, I think both things can be true. We, of course, we're hoping that we'd get a host to game, but with the season we had, we felt pretty good, especially coming off a nine-win year to turn around and get 19 in the regular season. We feel pretty good about where we're at and how much we've grown. I mean, it would have been nice for the kids to have a home game, but at the same time, we, again, like you say, we see it and we don't get a choice in that and now we go. So it's a matter of we got the bracket in front of us and we just got to play one of those games at a time and hope for the best. Well, you've had an opportunity to get on the practice field, which might be good, might be bad. I don't know if anybody ever really knows the answer to that for sure. I know you had a chance to play Pleasantville, a doubleheader, had a heck of a first game. Seven to six lost that one. They kind of got you in game two. Unfortunately, you lost the Meltzer Dallas game due to them needing to get a conference game back in. So, Gabe, you've kind of been away from game time for a little bit. What have the girls been up to? Yeah, they got to take a little break. They got a nice little weekend off for the holiday weekend and I think it turns into a good thing for us to recharge and settle down a little bit and take a step back to see how things have gone and also rest up. You know, if we've got some kids banged up, we played a lot of games this year and now to get back on track before the tournament is going to be big. But yeah, it was good that we got to play a good ranked Pleasantville team. You know, we took them down to the Liar. We had the winning run on second base with two outs and we're right there an opportunity to win and grab one from them. But it was good for us to battle and see one of those games before we hit the big time, which is this week. All right, so the interesting part now is you do get ready for postseason. You kind of have a mix here, to be honest with you, Gabe. You've got some girls that do know about postseason. They've been in postseason before, but you also have some girls that haven't been to postseason. So, do you sit them down? Do you have that conversation about how things are maybe a little bit closer in postseason or do these girls kind of understand that by now? I think what's nice is we got, like you're talking about, some of those older experienced kids to rely on. And, you know, we're kind of gauged to see where we were at, you know, what our mindset like had been this game. And the last couple of days of practice we've seen, you know, they're just ready to be back at it. They're enjoying themselves and enjoying the time they have together and didn't really have too much stress going into the game. So, for us, it's kind of nice as coaches. We don't have to do too much or explain the, you know, the impact of what this game could be. You know, we get to go on the road and try to play our best game and no pressure's on us. So, in that case, we're kind of looking forward to the challenge. When you look at getting ready for something like this, scouting report, let's be honest, you guys know each other so well. I feel like the scouting report, the girls could probably, you know, recite it to you, but Gabe, do you still have to go over it with them? Yeah, you know, that's the one thing that's nice about the post-season that we've got some time to prepare for each individual game. So, you know, they know it and you never want to do too much, try to get in their heads too much, but at the same time, they've, you know, over at Ogden, they've got some nice athletes and good softball players for sure. And so we know we've got to game plan around some of them and to be prepared. And like you said, we probably didn't even need to do that because our, our kids know them so well, but at the same time, that's part of it at this time of year. I think there's also two probably Gabe, the girls know each other pretty well, but it's still situations, right? Maybe in a situation, you do go with an intentional walk or maybe a situation, you're saying, okay, we're not going to pitch around this girl, we're going to go right after her. I mean, that changes a little bit kind of on game time, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. You got to plan, you know, ending by ending at the same time where the situations arise. And what we tried to do this week is to put them in as many different situations as we can to make our girls understand that we're going to play the game and all they got to do is win by one run. And so it's a matter of how we're going to do what's best for us and trust each other that they're going to make the plays too. Gabe, final thing for me. Give me a couple of things that would be key for matter to come up with a win tonight. Maybe just a few things that you think, okay, if this goes our way, we'll come up with a win. Well, I'm just going to give you a boring answer. And just like I told our kids, it's a matter of, we just got to hit the ball, put it in play, and then play great defense. And that's really what it comes down to. We're not trying to, we're not trying to make any remarkable play. We feel pretty good about health-wise and where we're at. And so it's a matter of, we just got to go and have fun, enjoy playing the game itself, and then, you know, trust that the game will come out in our outcome. Gabe, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck coming up tonight. Thanks, we'll see you. You bet. Gabe Dunnegan joining us. Matt Redd Softball here on Coaches Corner.