May 9, 2004
Stanford
Coach John Tanner
"We were pleased to rebound from yesterday and play at a high level in front of family and schoolmates. We played with a lot of passion. I was impressed with the team's overall performance."
On last night's game...
"Statistically, we had fifty percent more shots than them. Anyone looking at the review of the game would say it should have been our game. That's what makes sport great: chance. Our team has been riding a wave. Sometimes things go well, last night they didn't. That's why we all love sport, and sometimes hate it."
On not playing LMU earlier this season...
"Our team responds well when we've seen a team play before. Our girls knew the team well, what to expect. It was a great performance by their goalie, a new goalie."
Wendy Watkins
"I have a lot of mixed emotions, a bittersweet feeling. We would have loved to be in the championship game with USC and possibly have handed them a loss in their final game. [On her future in water polo] I'll be watching alumni play this summer in Athens."
Lauren Faust
"We wanted to play the best game of the season in the last game. We wanted to be in the championship. The big picture of the season hasn't changed, though, with our team and our commeraderie."
Laurel Champion
"It's about the journey. We're excited for next year. This game was the close of many careers and the beginning of others. We have experience coming back. To say you're a sophomore who has played in an NCAA match twice, that's huge."
Hartwick
Coach Alan Huckins
"This was a tough one. We knew coming into today that it would be tough. Our goal all season long was to get here...for more reasons beyond water polo. We knew the further we went the hard the decision would be to drop us to Division III. So being here was the biggest battle we had to fight all season long. We feel if we stay Division I, give us a few years and we'll be contending for the title. We went in here saying we need to save water polo [at Hartwick]."
"We had almost all of our families travel out for this game. We brought almost a hundred people."
Lindsey Bacolini [from Menlo-Atherton]
"I never imagined I would be playing in an NCAA match here. I had about 20 family members come out for the game today.
On friends on the Stanford team...
It's too hard to try to be friendly in the pool and stay competitive. I've played with five or six girls on the Stanford team. My dad actually graduated from Cal and my older sister played with the Stanford team in high school. My younger brother also played water polo."
If the program disappeared...
"I might consider going somewhere else to play, but our team is so close no one would really want to leave. It was hard after the game knowing the seniors wouldn't be around any more."