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Duke vs. Lehigh Division I NCAA Tournament Postgame Quotes
11/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Duke vs. Lehigh Men's Soccer Division I NCAA Tournament Postgame Quotes
November 19, 2006
Coach John Rennie
Opening Statement:
“First of all I thought Lehigh was a very difficult team to play against. They work as hard as anybody we've played. Particularly in the first half, we scored two goals on our first two shots and they were playing very well. But they got tired, in the second half and ended up chasing the ball a lot. The third goal took a little bit out of them. As I said, they are as hard a working team as we've played and they made it very, very difficult, particularly early in the game. When we scored those two goals we were very happy about that. We certainly were not out playing them at that point. But it cost them a lot of energy, after about 15-20 minutes you could see they weren't going to do that for 90 minutes.”
On Lehigh's intensity decreasing in the second half:
“We moved the ball very well in the second half, so they couldn't get a double team on the ball. They got tired of chasing, it wore them down.”
On Grella's play of late:
“We have some guys on this team who have an awful lot of talent and individual talent. Two of them (Videira and Wadsworth) are up right here. Mike Grella is one of them. The big difference with Mike right now is he is playing with a lot more consistency. He's only a sophomore. Certainly as a freshman he was inconsistent. It's a big adjustment; you're playing against older, bigger, stronger players as a freshman. He would have flashes of brilliance and then he wouldn't play very well. So he's become more and more consistent. These guys (Videira and Wadsworth) have a year advantage age-wise and they know what it's like to be a freshman. You gain a lot of confidence your sophomore year, and you're usually better. That's what's happening to Mike (Grella). He's made a great adjustment to the college game and he's getting more and more consistent.”
On what little things the team wants to work on:
“This week we worked very hard on our set pieces, free kicks, throw-ins: got the first goal off of that. This time of year you want to make sure you don't train too hard or too long and stay fresh. We're taking Monday off, we may take Tuesday off. We want to make sure that next Sunday we haven't left our game on the training field or worked too hard or not had enough work. As long as we're ready to go a week from today, we're happy with where we are and we'll work on things we normally work on. It certainly won't be a whole lot different.”
On the chances Chris Loftus will play next week:
“He's getting a lot better but the timetable was 2-4 weeks. It will be 3 weeks next Sunday. It's a little bit optimistic to think he could play next Sunday, but he might be able to. Particularly playing up front, he might be able to play 10-15 minutes in each half, if he was able to play.”
Junior Midfielder Michael Videira
On the pressure in the first half:
“We matched their intensity, especially in the first half. We just had a lot of chances on goal, we just kept driving it in against them and eventually they folded a little bit.”
On the confidence of the team:
“We have a lot of confidence going to the Elite 8 and everything. We know that we are a great team, we're just trying to stay humble going in because there are upsets happening all the time, all around us in the tournament.”
On the goal he scored:
“We'd been working on our set pieces in practice all the time, and the long throw from Darrius. It was great because Paul (Dudley) was in there as well and he went up for the first few and then we decided to switch. Paul kept three guys on him and I was able to go one-on-one with one of their defenders and just got a piece of it at the right time.”
On Lehigh's intensity decreasing in the second half:
“We just expected them to be working hard the entire game, that's their style. So coming into the second half we knew there wasn't going to be anything really that different.”
Junior Forward Spencer Wadsworth
On his healing hamstring injury:
“Today I felt good. Last game I could run and play, but I was kind of fearful of doing something again so I kind of held back a little bit. This game I actually had no fear, I could go out there and just play so it was good.”
On the goal he scored:
Zach Pope started it. He pressured the ball really hard on the outside and forced a turnover in the midfield, which Videira intercepted. He played me and I did a give-and-go with Mike Grella and I just hit it after he gave it back to me. I think what happened was that it kind of curved a little when I hit the ball in. So the goalie, he was kind of moving one way, and it curved at the end and hit his hand and it went in.
On the third goal, scored by Mike Grella:
“It was an interception off of pressure. Helton was putting pressure, Tomek intercepted it and played a through ball to Grella and he just put it away.”
On Lehigh's intensity:
“We focused on outworking them because their strength is hard work. We knew as long as we worked harder than them that we'd be alright.”
Players Mentioned
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