Nov. 19, 2005
BOSTON COLLEGE HEAD COACH ALISON FOLEY:
On the game:
"Once you get to the final 16 all teams are real quality teams, and that's what we saw out there today, two great teams. A little bit difference in style, obviously one west coast and one east coast, but that's what it's all about this time of year. You see the unknown, you see another great team that you typically don't get to see and you put your best foot forward. I think that's what both teams did today, which obviously ended up being a close game and a game that in my opinion either team could have won."
On the BC gameplan:
"We're real confident in our ability to defend, and we've had 13 shutouts this year, so once we get up on a team it gives us certainly a lot of confidence. We got a lot of information on Santa Clara, knew they were going to attack in higher positions with their outside backs, which then leaves them somewhat vulnerable with just two in the back, so we tried to get balls forward and up early in transition to our forwards and run at them a little bit. I think we found some success and we put their center backs under a little bit of pressure and disrupted them a little out of their style of play."
BOSTON COLLEGE MIDFIELDER JENNY MAURER:
On the second half performance:
"I think our success came when we possessed the ball, we connected and got it wide when their outside backs were high. I think we were trying to settle down, slow down the tempo, they were coming at us pretty hard so we tried to slow it down and possess the ball and attack in transition."
SANTA CLARA HEAD COACH Jerry Smith:
On the game:
"That's as hard as we've hard to work in a game all year. We played Notre Dame this year, we played, UCLA and Portland but that's as hard as we've had to play all year. I thought we came out well in the second half, came out aggressively, earned a couple of goals and then kind of hung on at the end of the game. But, very, very difficult to come back in an NCAA playoff game, and we were able to do that today and I'm very proud of my team for being able to do that."
On second-half adjustments:
"I think my exact words were, `If we don't do anything else, let's be the more aggressive team in the second half.' And I really felt like that was the difference in the game. At Santa Clara we pride ourselves on being skillful, smart soccer players and I think almost to a fault sometimes. But, to the credit of our players, they played a very athletic, well-organized BC team and we were the more aggressive team in the second-half today."
"Part of being an aggressive team is off-the-ball movement. I thought our mobility and energy in the second half created some space for our team to play a little better."
SANTA CLARA DEFENDER Micaela Esquivel:
On second half adjustments:
"I think it was just the halftime talk and the fact that we had 45 minutes to make a change in the game otherwise our season would end. I think what changed that was our mental state, there was more determination, more aggressiveness, more heart and it wasn't that they changed their marking but we made more space for ourselves, we wanted the ball more. I think the difference for me in the second half was that I actually went at players and the rest of our team was going at Boston College instead of allowing them to come at us."