Dec. 6, 2009
STANFORD HEAD COACH Paul Ratcliffe
opening statement...
"It was a disappointing way to end the season, but overall I'm really proud of this team and what they've accomplished throughout the entire season."
on the difference in the second half...
"It's just getting used to the swarming around the ball. North Carolina does great job of pressuring and swarming the ball. It's easy to talk about as a coach, what you need to do, but it's difficult in there, especially with slick conditions. It was hard for us to get into a rhythm and really play our type of soccer. It wasn't a fantastic game for us, we can play better, but you have to give North Carolina a lot of credit. They played, they put you under pressure, and they make it difficult for you to get into a rhythm."
on what Stanford can take away from this season...
"More hunger, that we can accomplish our goal of winning a national title. We can definitely do it. We've got to keep working hard and now we have more of a taste of what it's all about. We're moving up each year and hopefully we'll be able to get a national title in the future."
on North Carolina's goal sequence...
"It was a great cross and I give them a lot of credit. It was a fantastic bent-in cross, waited correctly, and their player did a good job of getting good position and put away a one-touch finish. It was a high-level goal."
on adjustments at halftime...
"We were telling them to just settle down and try to play possession, play our style of play and connect some passes; look for switching the point of attack, diagonal balls in behind the defense and find the width basically is where we were going to get the most success.
STANFORD SENIOR D Alicia Jenkins
on the seniors and what they've accomplished...
"The same mentality has been here the entire time, with the goal of winning a national championship, but this year everything kind of came together. The freshman came in, they stepped up. We had a lot of freshman playing in our first few games, and playing like they were seniors, and everyone had the mentality every single game. Obviously today was really disappointing but I'm really proud of every single person on the team and the effort that they've given every day, all season long.
STANFORD JUNIOR F Christen Press
on after Kelley (O'Hara) went out (with a red card)...
"There wasn't very much time in the game and I knew that we were going to have to give it our all. I just didn't want our mentality to be negative because we lost one of our best players. I knew that we did have a chance and we could have won it, even playing a man down."
on defensive pressure by UNC in first half...
"It was really disruptive and I felt like we had so many open players and we were just struggling to get them the ball. We played 90 minutes of soccer that wasn't the type of soccer that we wanted to play today."
UNC HEAD COACH ANSON DORRANCE
opening statement...
"I can't express properly how good I feel right now and how proud I am of this group. There's a certain nostalgia, a lot of these kids here came in as freshman and had a remarkable freshman year, and for them to finish off in this fashion I couldn't be prouder. I'm going to miss them, so I have mixed emotions right now."
on how tough it is to win a title now versus the old days..."It's longer. In the old days I think you'd play a game and then you'd be in the College Cup. Now, there's six games to win. In the old days there were just three. Six games makes it a lot tougher. The quality of the average team in the tournament now is phenomenal. We lost to a team this year in Miami that was a very good team that didn't make the NCAA Tournament. When the caliber of teams is so strong across the board like that, it is a lot harder."
on dominating the first half...
"We have a unique style. We try to bring that to bear against every team we play. Our philosophy isn't horribly profound, it's just basically a work ethic. Our team doesn't put up with any divas. If you're on the field for the Tar Heels, you put your hard hat on and you go to work. We sprint to close down people and make it difficult for any team to play. Stanford is a remarkable team with talent at every position and extraordinary talent coming off the bench. We've tried to develop a system that's hard to play against that's based on pressure and work ethic. I think it's hard for other teams to replicate that in practice...We try to play absolutely as fast as possible offensively. We try to force opponents to play faster than they can offensively. That's our fundamental game plan going into every single game. What makes it work is the players sitting around me. You can't do this with ordinary players or players that are uncoachable."
on another 1-0 victory...
"We've won a lot of 1-0 games this year. We've relied on an absolutely extraordinary defense. We've been accustomed to win games by narrow margins. It's certainly not a choice though."
UNC SENIOR D WHITNEY ENGEN
on the tough test Stanford provided and the Cardinal front line...
"Obviously coming into the game we have so much respect for the Stanford front line. For what Kelley's (O'Hara) done this season, I think she's a very, very good player. It's a shame what happened in the game happened. I played with Christen Press growing up. I played with both girls in the summer too. I had a lot of respect coming in for their front line. I also knew we had to trust in our system for it to work. We don't change our system for anyone. We had that respect in the back of our mind, but we also know that to play the game we want to play, we have to play the system we play all year. We held a great line today, and (goalkeeper) Ash (Harris) came out big from behind and led us, and we played really well today."
on the senior class legacy...
"All of us played our first game here at Texas A&M in front of 8,000 people. We lost that game 1-0, and it was the first time Carolina has lost its first game of season. All of us knew we came to Carolina to win and here we lose our first game of the season. To come full circle and win our last game right here on this field meant a lot to us. We pride ourselves in being a family and caring so much for one another. We go out on the field and work hard for the person next to you. It felt great to go out this way."
UNC SENIOR D KRISTI EVELAND
on Stanford's attack...
"What made them so dangerous is they are not only fast but also skillful. Most forwards we play against are either one or the other. Those girls could do both and are really talented. We stuck to our system and our forwards helped us so much. It's such a team effort. We did draw our line high, and we've been playing that way all year. We stuck to what we know and it worked out."
UNC JUNIOR F JESSICA MCDONALD
on her goal...
"Normally when I see Casey (Nogueira) going 1v1 versus a defender I'm usually confident she will be there most of time. I saw two defenders there, went in between them and got a foot on it and surprisingly it went in. It was exhilarating. My heart was going kind of fast. It was great."
UNC SENIOR F CASEY NOGUEIRA
on Jessica McDonald's run...
"Yeah, I saw her running. I knew she would get there."
on her success in the College Cup...
"It's always a team effort obviously. I'm always somehow in the right place at the right time. All the credit seriously goes to everyone else on the team. They've worked so hard all year. To be able to have Jess (McDonald) get that goal is amazing for our whole team."