Nov. 17, 2006
Stanford, Calif. -
Stanford Head Coach Paul Ratcliffe:
"Soccer's a cruel game. I thought we played great and created a lot of chances, but we just couldn't find the back of the net. To lose in PKs is always hard."
"They had three shots the whole game and we had 18. That's how they won the previous two games. They're resilient in the back. Their goalkeeper is good, but still, we hit the inside of the post, we had chances to win the game and for whatever reason we didn't have the luck today. Soccer can be that way."
(On Stanford chances) "Early in the game, we got behind them. There were a few glaring chances where if you capitalize on those chances, you win the game. We got behind them a few times, crossed it in front. We just didn't have the connection or the execution to finish our chances."
(On choosing the players for penalty kicks) "For me, it's up to the players. Whoever feels confident. It's all about confidence. Those are the ones that want to step up and take the PKs. One hit the underside of the bar which is very unfortunate and then the other one was a good save by the goalkeeper."
(On the future) "The team had a fantastic season. We're a relatively young team and I know we can go further than we did this year next year. As long as everyone keeps working hard, keeps fit and healthy, we can have a fantastic team in the future. You always need a little luck in soccer, and today we didn't have luck, at all."
(On preparing for Clemson) "They basically play a 4-5-1 and sit in and try to counter-attack you. It can be hard to break that down and score, especially with a good goalkeeper. It's difficult. The only thing you can do is try to get the ball wide and get behind them and get crosses in because it's going to be hard to get behind them in the center of the field. They were resilient in the back and it's just hard to break them down. If you commit too many players forward, they can counter-attack you and win the game that way, so it's difficult. It's also a gamble on their part because we should have scored. If you allow someone to shoot 18 times, it won't keep working. It's going to bite them eventually. I'm amazed they got this far."
"Hopefully this makes our players more hungry. You have setbacks in life and it makes you push harder and go further in life. Hopefully, we can take it as a setback and push further and go beyond this next year. We've had a taste of it. It's been a great experience and I wish we could have more of a taste. I think we should have gone on to the next round."
Sophomore Defender Allison Falk:
"For us it was frustrating. Sometimes we need to just wait for the goal to come. Paul told us at halftime `The goal will come. The goal will come.' and the ball didn't bounce our way today. We out-shot them 18-3, we hit the post one time, but the ball just didn't go our way today."
(On the defense) "I think the defense did very well, solid as usual. I think we did a really good job of getting the balls in behind the defense and trying to let Ali Riley and our forwards go offensively. I thought we played a very solid game."