Villanova 5, TOLEDO 1 (NCAA Tournament)
11/12/2006 12:00:00 PM | Women's Soccer
Recap | Final Stats
Toledo Head Coach Brad Evans
How disappointing was it getting behind 2-0 so early, what type of challenges did that pose?
First of all, not at all disappointing, I would never say disappointing with this team. Was that what we wanted? No. We wanted to get through the first 15 minutes without conceding a goal. They exploited the first half. Two restarts. Two of the three goals were off of restarts. Which is something we had had a little bit of difficulty with earlier in the year but we had fixed for the most part through the conference season. I give credit to Villanova. They have fantastic players. We don't see that caliber of players. In fact, from Purdue and St. Louis, I would say they are the better of those three teams that we saw this year.
What do you want your younger players to take from this and carry into the future?
Once you get a taste don't you...? It's a bit like a drug; you'd like a second taste. And we know in our conference that's so hard to do. I want our kids to be excited, to challenge themselves, to get back here. They're going to have to work very hard and they know that. The tradition doesn't graduate and these kids have set the bar.
Is this something you thought was possible three or four weeks ago?
Yes, we felt it was possible last spring. We knew it was possible; it was a matter of doing it.
Is there any significance in getting that goal in the end?
You can use any sort of positive cliché that you want. It validates that our kids didn't quit. It validates that for the most part, at the end of the game, we had a lot of young players on, and a lot of young players made some things happen, and that's good. I wouldn't draw too much beyond that. We played until the last minute, but that's the kind of character this group has. They weren't going to quit.
Player Quotes
Senior Goalkeeper Jen Whipple
Were you girls nervous coming in here? What was the feeling when you stepped on the field?
I don't know. Personally I didn't have a whole lot of nerves, more because, when you come in as the underdog, the pressure's not really on you. I think that our team was pretty relaxed because they were excited to be here. We had accomplished our goal of the MAC tournament, but we were all still looking ahead because we thought this was a winnable game. So nerves, I don't know if nerves really set in until during the game when we were kind of realizing what we were up against. Kind of tightening up a bit and just kind of not playing our game.
How was your experience?
It was awesome. It's something I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I'm sad it's over. I had someone tell me earlier this season that it's about the journey and not the results, and it's so true. So this was awesome. There's no better way to go out as a senior. Why I get to go out as a senior like this, I don't know what I did to deserve that. It's awesome.
