WBSC U-18 Women's Softball World Cup Group C press conference: Head coaches on mindset, preparation ahead of tournament start on Thursday

The WBSC U-18 Women's Softball World Cup Group C is ready to go on Thursday, with six teams competing for two spots in next year's Finals. On Wednesday, during the pre-tournament press conference held at Drey Hotel at The Village Dallas, the head coaches of the six teams talked about their teams and their expectations for the event. 

All teams shared their philosophy approaching this event, which closes the Group Stage of this competition. 

"Our approach has been trying to be better at one thing every single day, especially being better than ourselves the day before," said Kyla Holas, USA head coach who is leading the team again after winning the world title in 2021. "We really have been locked in on learning every day. They embraced it and they choose what they want to be better in as a team every day."

Jorge Corvera, coach of the Mexican team said his side came to Dallas with a clear goal: Advance to the Finals. "We have a positive mentality, our goal is to claim a ticket to the Finals, and the girls are ready for the challenge. We've worked hard during the last two years, so we aim to clinch out ticket to the Finals 2025." 

However, Mexico will face fierce competition this week, including from Australia. "Our mindset is to compete every game, no matter what happens we're competing, and we go out there and play our best," said Leigh Godfrey, Australia's head coach who competed in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. "This is a really good learning opportunity for all these girls that potentially go on to LA28 to really utilize this experience for good international exposure to understand that pressure is privilege and we're lucky enough to have that."

Keith Mackintosh, Canada's head coach, also shared his philosophy entering the tournament, saying he and his team take care of the little things. "Big things take care of themselves," he said. "Some of these kids were (at the Americas qualifier) in Colombia and some are new ones. So we're really focusing in putting the team together and getting ready as a unit."

Skylynne Elazar, head coach of Philippines, said the team needs to focus on themselves and the controllable things. "I think for us, our main mindset is being resilient and controlling the things that we can control," she said. "This is a new team who is coming together, I know there are a lot of things that go around. But as I usually tell the girls, we need to focus on the things we can control on the field, then the other things will fall into place."

"We've taken every opportunity we can to bring our players together. A big portion of them traveled to the U-23 European Championship in Poland, and I think it was a great experience for these younger players to kind of step up and see the change of levels," said Melanie Lavery, Ireland head coach. "Every time you have the opportunity to wear the name of your country across your chest it's a huge experience. They might feel some anxiety, but this is normal. And once they see the first pitch it all goes back to normal."

To finish the press conference, the teams were asked to think of one word to describe their excitement for this week. These are each team's one-word:

• Australia: Compete
• Canada: Family
• Ireland: Heart
• Mexico: Qualify
• Philippines: Fight
• USA: Legacy