2009 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship - Day One
5/8/2009 8:00:00 AM | Water Polo
May 8, 2009
Postgame Quotes
Game 1: No. 2 Stanford 21, No. 7 Marist 5
Stanford Cardinal
Head Coach John Tanner
On Stanford's strong first half:
"We came out with a lot of energy, which is what we wanted to do. We wanted to play up-tempo and make them play at our speed and I think we did that right away. Having four or five goals in the first few minutes helped us get into the flow of the tournament. We wanted to come out of the gate really fast and we were strong in all phases of the game in the first half."
On having the opportunity to rest his starters:
"It's a physical demanding sport and you have to be ready to play everyday no matter what. But it was fun to get the whole team plenty of time and distribute that. It adds to the energy when you have everyone contributing."
Junior Driver Kelly Eaton
On Stanford's victory:
"That's how we wanted to start the tournament and how we intend to end it, with a bang."
"Obviously you can't win games without offense, but in the first half we held them to one goal. We really want to be stronger on defense and not have even the best teams score any goals if we can help it."
Marist Red Foxes
Head Coach Ashleigh Jacobs
On the loss:
"When you open up with the No. 2 team in the country, you know you're in for a tough game. Half the battle is making it to the tournament, but it's tough to come out and play the No. 2 team in the country. We knew it was going to be difficult coming into it. You don't want to give up 21 goals ever, let alone 8 of 11 on 6-on-5s. There are definitely things that we'll take out of this and aim to fix."
On moving on from the loss:
"You can't overlook the opportunity to play the No. 2 team in the country in the NCAA opening round. They're No. 2 for a reason, they've battled with one, two, and three and they're a very good team. We're moving on in that we've got two more games to play and not hanging up on the fact that we didn't come out and have a huge upset. But there's a lot to be taken from this game that we can tweak to finish out this tournament strongly. We still have our goals and we will work to do those in our last couple games here."
Junior Driver Kristen Barnett
On Marist's goals for the rest of the tournament:
"It's a bigger competition out here and we definitely need to prove ourselves. Games like these give us a chance to grow and allow us to work on things that we've worked on in practice."
"We want to at least win one game out here. We have the opportunity to do it; we've grown as a team, made huge strides, and we're the best team Marist has had, hands down."
Game 2: No. 3 UCLA 13, No. 6 Michigan 6
UCLA Bruins
Head Coach Adam Krikorian
On the game:
"I was proud of the way we started the first quarter. Clearly that was the key to getting off to a good start. However, I thought we put it into cruise control a little too early. Overall, we knew Michigan was going to be a tough game going into this. Congratulations to Michigan. I give them credit for playing us tough. That's exactly what we expected."
Michigan Wolverines
Head Coach Matt Anderson
On the game:
"It was a solid game. That was a hard-played, aggressive fight. They got three goals as the buzzer was sounding, at the end of the first, at the end of the second, and at the end of the fourth. They got two goals on the goal line that we didn't clear out that they pushed in. But, we did a lot of positives out there. We allowed them to do a lot of things that we knew they were going to do. When it was 9-6, we had a breakaway, one-on-nobody, that we missed. At 10-6, we have a 6-on-5 that we missed. Unfortunately, the last three periods we definitely were able to do what we wanted, but we allowed them to get out in the first period. That's why they are going for their fifth national championship."
"Leah Robertson dominated out there; they could not stop her, which is very good for us. But then we could not stop the bad breaks; the three shots when the clock is going off and a couple on the goal line. When you're an elite program like UCLA, those things go your way. They proved that they're the better team today, but I have no complaints losing to a team like that with the effort we had."
Senior Driver Sharayah Hernandez
On Michigan's defense:
"Once we started pressing on defense and doing what Matt [Anderson] told us to do, which was press the fly to shut them down, they didn't have anything. Even though they scored, we gave them a hard time. There was a length of time without anyone scoring because we were playing really good defense and they were playing really good defense. But when they scored and they started to break away was when we got away from our defense. There was a lack of intensity and energy like when we played against Hartwick and without that I don't believe we could play our best game."
No. 1 USC vs. No. 8 Cal Lutheran
USC Trojans
Head Coach Jovan Vavic
On the game:
"Our defense was very good. We played very disciplined defense we didn't give up too many silly ejections. We did a very good job offensively by scoring 22 goals, and out counter-attack was pretty successful. A couple of young girls had a good game. Nadia Dan scored 4 goals and she's only a freshman. She had a good shooting day. Sarah Van Norman had 3 goals and she's a young player for us. Dronberger also had 3. So I'm pretty happy with the way we hustled."
On the play of the youngsters:
"Any time you score it gives you confidence so that means that they're going to be looking to shoot more again. So every time you score, it doesn't matter who you play, the score could be 5-4 or it could be 22-4, it gives you confidence."
On his thoughts about the offense and defense:
"We were focused. I thought for the most part we were quick, we were focused and we were looking around to help each other. They ran some interesting picks and plays that we haven't seen this season very much so I thought that we did a good job. You have to give them credit, they played very hard throughout the game and they did a good job I thought."
Sophomore Utility Kristen Dronberger
On the performance of the younger players:
"It definitely gives us a lot of confidence for us as underclassmen. I think we showed up ready to play. We were all pumped in warm-up and everything. We saw it was divided as upperclassmen and underclassmen and we were stoked to show what we had."
On playing Cal Lutheran:
"We always approach every (opponent) like it's our number one competitor, and they were for today our number one competitor. That's the team we played. So we approached it like any big game and I really think that our preparation and our focus was really good in warm-up and before the game. We had really good communication, we knew what each other was thinking, and it was fun!
Cal Lutheran Regals
Head Coach Craig Rond
On the game:
"It was a great honor to be here in this venue. I thought Jovan and USC were very gracious in playing us hard. I thought it was a good experience for our team."
On getting the first goal:
"It was exciting to get on the scoreboard first and that Meredith Butte, out All-American was able to get a goal out there."
On building on playing a team the caliber of USC:
"I think our players will take some of the quickness that USC plays with. I think if we can work towards being a little bit quicker the next couple days we'll have some success."
No. 4 Hawai'i vs. No. 5 Loyola Marymount
Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine
Head Coach Michel Roy
On the game:
"I thought my girls played very, very well. They were composed. They played tactically superior to our opponent. I'm very pleased with how calm we were on offense, how we worked on our plays and we progressed during the game. They played great defense. Our man down was solid. We had a good chance to practice a man down today."
On the play of the defense:
"Our man down was most likely the key. Our team defense was very good. The girls played hard."
On the three-goal outburst in the fourth period to seal the win:
"The girls played together. They wanted to win. They had to score the goals one-on-one. That was the only way we were going to win."
Sophomore Two- Meter Leonie Van Der Molen
On the game:
"We played really well. Everything came into play today. We had good passes and good shots. Our defense was great, we had a lot of kickouts, though, that we shouldn't have."
On scoring four goals in the second half:
"There were good passes. I don't score alone. It was definitely a team effort."
Loyola Marymount Lions
Head Coach John Loughran
On the game:
"I think that we didn't get into our flow at 6-on-5, we weren't taking time outs at 6-on-5 because we wanted to attack quickly and their size, especially at the middle, at 6-on-5 really helped with the shot-block in the middle of the pool. Their goalie played excellent when they were down 5-on-6. They played great five man and they covered water and really tried to shut us down. But we were being very aggressive in terms of drawing the ejections; I think our team did a really nice job sticking to the game plan. That was our goal, they're a bigger, stronger team.
On comparing his play to the play of Hawaii:
"I think they're seniors, they have a crew of seniors and a crew of international players who are older than our players. We have 18-year-old freshmen in there trying to play two minutes against a 24-year-old senior. I think that their experience really showed off. They played a great game, they hit the shots that they needed to hit and we were missing the shots that we needed to make. So I was really proud of our team, we made a great team effort. Our young kids played really tough. I thought they gave a real solid team effort and I thought our kids played together."
