Dec. 19, 2001
Santa Clara Head Coach Chris Denker
"I thought Kendra Rhea was huge the first half. Julie Butler got into some quick foul trouble, which obviously we don't like to have, but I was prepared to put her back in if we needed to, but Kendra was just playing great. Kim and Jennie just kind of tightened down the other spot and got some rebounds and defended for us, so we ended up not having to put Julie back in so that was kind of a blessing in disguise, so we got out of the half with Julie only having two fouls. Kendra did really well the first half which carried us offensively.
"I thought to start the game Temple came at us a bit. They had us back on our heals a little bit. They came at us aggressive defensively, they were pushing the ball a little bit, and our kids just kind of stood back at first. Then, I think it was at the 15-minute mark, the first media timeout, we said OK we've seen what they've got now we need to respond a little bit.
"For the last couple of games I've been really happy with our guards pushing it in transition and then our post got out and ran back, I think Kendra caught the one deep one and finished the lay-up. And Julie got one in the second half and the guards were playing great. It felt like then they got kind of charged up, and that is a fun way to play, everyone feeds off that. Momentum builder type of plays."
Santa Clara Senior Guard Caroline Gruening (16 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists)
"We shot the ball really well, I think we shot over 50 percent in the first half. Our defense was really good. We were playing a man most of the time. We just did a good job keeping our man in front of us and then if we didn't we had help there. It was a good team effort."
Santa Clara Junior Forward Kendra Rhea (14 points, 6 rebounds)
"With our guards getting a lot of rebounds, that lets our posts leak out and get break away layups. It's a real confidence builder for the team."