May 9, 2008

2008 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship

First Round Quotes: UC Davis 9, UC San Diego 8

San Diego State driver Jenna Schuster
One the game:
"It's definitely frustrating to lose a game you were going into hoping to play hard and win. It's a hard loss for us, and the only we can really do from here is bounce backand get fifth place."

"I felt like the entire game that we were with them. We had a few lapses on defense, and they took advantage of that. We were never able to fully come back. But we played hard."

UC Davis Head Coach Jamey Wright
On the game:
"I'm incredibly happy with the performance of our tema. Its uncharted territory for us. The NCAAs, we had one other trip, and we finished fifth, so to be in the top four is, I'm speechless, I don't know what to say. Its outstanding."

On the matchup with San Diego State:
"Even before there was an NCAA national championship there was the collegiate national championship, and it seemed like we played San Diego State with Karen, so we've known each other for a long time. They're always really competitive, and this year, we had another one-goal game with them at the Irvine Tournament, where we won by two. They missed two penalty shots in that game, but they didn't miss their only one tonight."

"I knew it was going to be a tight game, a one, two-goal type of game, and the thing that's really difficult when trying to defend them, its like they've got Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Allen Iverson, all the perimeter, then Amare Stoudemire and Tim Duncan in the post, and you're going we need to help back, but who do we help off of, because they all can hose it. And we saw that in the game. We dropped off a little too much, and if we were a little too far out, they'd come in and get an exclusion. They were very efficient, I thought. I haven't seen the numbers but it seemed like they made every 6-on-5 they got."

It was one of those games where we got just enough stops. I thought Casey played an amazing game. She's done that all year long, and really, she's an unsung story of this season. I think she played maybe 80 minutes all last season, which averages out to about two and a half minutes a game. To go from that role to what we've asked her to do this year is a tall order, and she's done an amazing job. She had eight, nine, 10 saves, and every one of them turned out to be a game-winnign tye of play. She played great."

"Raycraft played her typical, amazing offensive and defensive performance. I thought Lindsay Kiyama, again, the last 10-15 games of the season she's just been on a tear. Its just ridiculous for our team offensively to have one more potent weapon who also happens to be our fastest player."

Senior Attacker Christi Raycraft
On getting to the NCAA Championship as a senior:
"I'm really excited. We played really well, and I don't think that we had any doubt in our minds that we weren't going to beat them. It was easy for us to saythat ok we beat LMU to get here, and that's the best. That could've been the end of our season. But I think that we played with a lot of heart, this is an awesome place to play. This is the first and last place that we'll play together. It was awesome to have all of our fans, I didn't think that many Davis people were going to come here."

Sophomore Goalkeeper Casey Hines
On the close games against San Diego State:
"We played San Diego State earlier in the season, and like Jamey said, we beat them by one, but it could've easily gone either way. We knew they were going to have outside shooters, we knew they could shoot the ball, and we also knew that their whole sets were aggressive in their moves, and we were either going to get kicked out of there or they were going to get a good shot off. I think that's just how they play."

"Its frustrating because every defensive possession for them, every offensive possession for us, I feel like if I stop it now, I'll be ok, just go one at a time. The whole game is just one possession at a time. Every time I got the ball in my hands and they were swimming away, its like, that's 30 less seconds, that much closer to the end of the game."

"If they get one foul outside the five, they could easily score it. Easily. They have great outside shooters, and so you can't foul anyone outside the five, because its such a good scoring opportunity. If they just come down and draw a foul and shoot it, that takes all of five seconds to score."