Postgame Quotes
November 23, 2014 | Women's Soccer
Opening Statement
"First of all, we'd just like to congratulate the University of Florida on a well-played game. They're definitely a special team with a lot of good seniors and characteristics that I think should make everybody that likes college soccer excited to watch them. We knew it was going to be a great game. We were pretty disappointed in the first half, obviously, but fought back and scored and made it 2-1 and really felt like in the second half when we equalized, we had them on the ropes. We had decided to just absorb a little more, be a little more conservative defensively and try to counter and get around the outside of them. Obviously Janine (Beckie) hit the post before she scored. Paige (Strahan) was stuffed at the top and kind of went down fighting. It's not unlike the player who scored the goal to have a piece of class in her game, and I think she scored a nice goal to go ahead for them, but it certainly wasn't for lack of chances at the other end. We're bitterly disappointed, to be fair. Once we got our legs under us and realized this game was even, we thought we could win it. We knew we could win it, and the fact that it got away from us was disappointing."
On coming back from deficits throughout the season...
"I think that initially, it was maybe we didn't bring our A-game at the beginning, or we lost a little bit of focus in some of those games and let teams get up on us, but as the season went on, I don't think that was the case. Certainly we can't say we weren't ready for Florida; we weren't taking them seriously. They had our full attention. So I think going down one today was the product of Florida being a good team. They scored a fine goal that they deserved, and so we found ourselves in that hole. The key there is we had done it so many times this year that we weren't rattled. We just kind of looked around and expected somebody to make a difference for us. Erin Inman and Sara Summers came off the bench. Inman got into a tackle at the top of the box and squared it to Summers, who's a freshman who probably had the best game of her year today, and she scored a nice goal. It's funny; we got faster once we scored, we got more energy once we scored and we had life. We were used to that feeling and fully expected to equalize and obviously hoped for more after that. But it's a great testament to these girls. They don't get rattled when we're down. It's just unfortunate we had to dig ourselves out of that hole again."
On his thoughts about Florida...
"We didn't underrate them; there's no doubt. We fully respected them and knew they were going to have a lot of the ball. They did a lot of the things that we expected. I think we weren't as physical as they were in the contest. I think that tipped it in their favor a little bit. It's a pretty big team. But I've always been a fan of the way they play, and we're going to cheer for them as they go through from here. We hoped it was our path, and if it's theirs, then we'll get behind them."
On the impact of the outgoing senior class...
"They've really embodied what we've been through, and what they've given to this program is going to be very difficult to replace. But I told them they've left a legacy. When you're at the beginning of something, you should always be remembered for putting them on the map, and this class and I think the class before them were the two classes that turned the corner for us, and we will be forever grateful."
Texas Tech junior forward Janine Beckie
On the character of Texas Tech to be able to rally...
"I think it just takes us all knowing that the game's not going to be over until the ref blows the final whistle. We have threats at every position. We're great in the back; we have an unbelievable goalkeeper. We have great trust in each other, and we know that when we go down, we're going to come back. I think we just know that the game's never over so anything can happen when you're on the field."
