Nov. 16, 2012
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NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament
Santa Clara vs. Stanford
November 16, 2012
Laird Q. Cagan Stadium
Post-game quotes
STANFORD
Senior Courtney Verloo
Describing her first goal, assisted by Chioma Ubogagu...
"I give a ton of credit for that goal to her (Ubogagu). She had the guts to split her two defenders, take an end line and play a great ball back to me. It was an easy finish because of her hard work."
Describing her second goal, which was scored unassisted...
"They were dropped off a little bit, and I can't remember who played the ball off to me. There was some good build-up out of the back and I just saw an opening on the far post. I questioned the shot for a second there; I thought it actually might have been going a little high."
Thoughts on a familiar postseason matchup with Santa Clara...
"I think we expect every game to be like that from this point, and we always expect it from Santa Clara. They're a great team, a competitive team and a rival school. So, it's always a great game and a physical game on both sides. That's just the nature of this rivalry. I feel like this win prepares us well for the rest of the tournament."
Head coach Paul Ratcliffe
General thoughts on the game...
"I thought we played OK. There was just so much emotion in the game, so I think we never really settled in and played like I wanted us to play. Both goals were fantastic goals, so we had a few good sequences in the games. I thought we showed great character to prevail against a strong Santa Clara squad."
Thoughts on a familiar postseason matchup with Santa Clara...
"We know each other so well. It's always an emotional game, especially when you know that if you lose, you're done for the season. So, you always see a lot of emotion on the field. It's just a tough match."
On matching up with Santa Clara in the second round...
"I think it's realistic from the second round on during the postseason, that you expect it to be a tight match. There are so many great teams in the country. I think this will harden us to what we can expect to see the rest of the way."
SANTA CLARA
Head coach Jerry Smith
On the game...
"Stanford's a good team, they're the champs and the No. 1 team this year. We had them on their heels a couple of times late in the game; we had a couple of chances. We had a game plan and anytime you can play the national champs dead even, you played well."
"That was a heck of a second goal for Courtney Verloo and a great effort by Chi (Ubogagu) to keep the ball in. Chi scrambled, hustled and played the ball into the middle for the first goal. Verloo's second goal is something you can't defend; a shot from 25 yards out that hits the underside of the bar with a lot of pace on it. Nobody's going to save that shot."
On the seeding...
"If I'm disappointed about anything, it's about the seeding. We had an RPI of 11 and we played the RPI 1 team in the second round. When you have 323 teams in the country and 64 make the tournament and you work your butt off to be an RPI 11, you don't expect to play the No. 1 RPI in the second round. Going forward, we'll try to do whatever we can to have a higher RPI."
Santa Clara freshman Dani Weatherholt
On the goal...
"My team did a really good job of getting it down the line, and they played it in and I just went for it. It was a great ball in."On what to take from this loss..."It was a great opportunity. We never gave up and showed a lot of heart and character. That's going to make us stronger going forward."