Trisha Ford's Aggies enter postseason as No. 3 seed in SEC Tournament

Texas A&M softball completed its regular season slate last weekend and now sits as the No. 3 seed in the 2024 SEC Tournament. Head coach Trisha Ford joined Wednesday's edition of TexAgs Radio to discuss the week ahead for the Aggies in Auburn, Alabama.

Key notes from Trisha Ford interview

• It's a great opportunity. It's the first time we've had a double-bye. It's a new experience for us, and we will get a chance to watch some teams before we play on Thursday. The SEC does a great job of making it an environment that is exciting and full of competition.
   
• We had tough games on Friday and Saturday. We were one pitch and one hit away in both games. That environment in Florida is tough. It is tough to win on the road in the SEC.
   
• My message to the team was that is how close we are. We have to figure out how to get over that hump. The good news is that our season isn't over. We get to regroup and come out to compete again in what feels like a regional or super. It's a warm-up before we hopefully have more games at Davis Diamond.
   
• Our game is full of life lessons, and it's hard. We can sit back and look at the little things that crossed us. The thing is we've put together a really good plan of how we are going to be successful, and we have been at a high rate. You have to learn from Florida, move on and get better.
   
• Coming from behind can do a lot of things if you allow it. It adds pressure and you can see our pitchers get nit-picky with the placement. That leads to walks. You have to go back to playing your game because this game has a lot of ups and downs but also a lot of opportunities. 
   
• You have to learn and keep moving. We are a really good team and sometimes we have to remember that.
   
• We are still tinkering. It is about the matchup and who we think we will see in the circle on the other side. You are always evolving and moving pieces around. I think we have the correct pieces. Now, we need to figure out how they fit. It depends on our plan of attack game-wise. 
   
• Koko Wooley can, at any point in time, change the game. Defensively, running the bases, in the box... She continues to work. She's been in and out because of her hamstring issue. So it's been hard for her to find her rhythm.
   
• Last weekend, Koko found her rhythm. She tries to do too much sometimes. That's what she and I talked about. Watching her fly around the bases is always a good day for us. She is a junior, so she knows what this part of the season is like. She knows what she has to do.
   
• Anytime you have more information, it is good. Our team is comfortable with them. When we played South Carolina and Mississippi State previously, we did a good job. At the end of the day, you have to show up and win a ball game. We have played both teams in a three-game series. I think we hit them really well. Both teams have improved.
   
• We have to come out and play our game. Everyone is going to make adjustments and just have good energy from the first pitch to the last pitch. We understand what both of their defenses are capable of doing. We've seen their arms like they have seen all of our arms. So, it's going to be a fun game.
   
• KPI is different from RPI it takes into consideration on-the-road games and wins, but it doesn't way in wins as heavily as RPI does. It takes into consideration, “Were you on the road? At what time of year? How close was the game? Some other factors I think are maybe a little more true than RPI, which is a numbers game. I hope they utilize that at a high rate this year when they go into that room.
   
• RPI, we are at No. 16, and at KPI, we are at No. 12. It's a better tool, and hopefully, you'll see a lot of sports transitioning to that metric. We won't know until Selection Sunday, but if we take care of business and move through this tournament, we will have a good chance of hosting games at Davis as well.
   
• Any coach will tell you to get to the postseason and to be healthy mentally and physically, you've got a good shot. We are in that position we are pretty healthy. We are dealing with a few bang-ups, but nothing major. We are in a good position to make a good run here in this postseason.
   
• I think we are in a good headspace and are excited. We dealt with Florida and flushed it. The good news is that we are going to keep playing softball.
   
• They know that if we have another weekend like that again, we are done. As I said earlier, you learn from it, figure out what went wrong, address it and then keep going. This is the fun part of the year. You work so hard to get to this point, so we are excited.