Louisville-Northwestern Postgame Quotes
November 25, 2012 | Men's Soccer
Nov. 25, 2012
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#10 Louisville 2, Northwestern 1
Cardinal Park - Louisville, Ky.
Louisville Head Coach Ken Lolla
(Opening statement) "First of all, I'd like to say I'm extremely proud of our guys. We said afterwards that it wasn't necessarily our cleanest game and it wasn't our sharpest game in many respects, but I was proud of how they didn't panic. They were grinding it out a little bit towards the end and you could feel the momentum for us shifting in the second half. I thought we put enough good plays together and having somebody special like Dylan to create the goal at the end made the difference in the game. Having said that, I thought our defense was really solid other than the one restart we gave up early where I thought we lost focus after the score. After that, I thought we were really solid on the night. Mike (Mauro) as well as Daniel (Keller), Andrew (Farrell), Jerry (Ramirez) and Brock (Granger) were very good tonight. I'm proud of these guys and the journey continues."
(On the team's training leading up to the match and whether it remained at a high level) "It has. We had another very good week of training. The energy level has been very good and the intensity was very good. We're riding a little bit of momentum right now. What we talk about with our guys more than anything else is we have another week simply to get better. We don't want to maintain. We want to use the opportunities we have to continue to improve as a team. It helps to have a week between games to do that. During the season, we usually play two games a week and there's not enough time to really get better because you're always recovering from the last game. The last three weeks have been very good for us and we look forward to another good week."
(On how much different his team is now than we they faced next week's opponent Maryland in the season-opener) "It's very different simply because having so many new guys and young guys, it's been a year of growth. It's tough to measure how much some of these guys have grown. We also have some guys in different positions as well, so we've grown tremendously. I'm sure Maryland would say the same about their team, but we feel really good about where we're at right now from the starting point we had. We said in the beginning of the year we felt with this group that as long as we continue to work at it that by the end of the year, we were going to be in a good spot to compete. We weren't necessarily going to be judged by our first game or the second or third but on our last game. We feel like we've improved quite a bit. We're a very different team than we were the first of the year."
(On the goals within the program to play deep into the post-season) "There's an expectation. The culture we've created is one of a high standard of excellence. It goes with everything we do and with that comes expectations to succeed as well. When you're in the Sweet 16, it's about the bracket at the time and that is one game - which was against Northwestern. Now, our bracket is simply Maryland. We can't look past that. We have to take care of that one. If we do, then we'll start looking at the next one."
Northwestern Head Coach Tim Lenahan
(Opening statement) "I thought it was a great game. I thought it was well played on both sides. Congratulations to Louisville, Coach Lolla - class guy, it was class all the way here. I was really proud of our guys to come on the road against a good team and give up a goal two minutes in. It was very easy to kind of start warming up the bus, but we battled right back, two minutes later and scored a goal. It was difficult the way it ended, but they made a good play. I know it was credited as an own-goal, but I like to call that an `earned' goal, because he did break us down, it just happened to go off of our guy's leg. They earned that goal even though it was a little unlucky on our part. We battled, they had chunks of possession, but the chances were about even. We had a real good look on the header towards the end, with about 15 minutes left or so. That was our play to make. (Then) Tyler made a big save to keep it even, just a little unlucky but it was earned and good luck to Louisville."
(On the resilience of his team) "Our guys care. Our goal is to be the best college soccer experience in the country - not win the Big Ten, not make the Elite Eight, Final Four - that's all by-product of having guys that care. Resiliency or whatever, just when you have guys that care, they're not going to give up. The fact that Jarrett Baughman, our senior captain who hadn't scored a goal all year and broke his nose this week and that's the guy that scored the goal, that tells you all you need to know about what our fiber is. We have great kids on our team who care about each other and the program and they weren't going to go down without something happening. There were actually three good looks on that play, the keeper made a great save on the first header and we were down on the second."
"I was proud of the way we bounced back. It was a very tactical game, combination play followed by counterattack. We tried to keep the game tight. It's like NBA basketball, once you get to the finals, you're not seeing 120-116 games. You're seeing very half-court, grind it out type games. We did what we needed to do, we just needed to make a play down the stretch and they made the play."
(On what makes Louisville good) "They have good soccer IQ, their three or four attacking players... good combination. I didn't think we did a great job of taking (Ade Akinsanya) (Paolo DelPiccolo) or out of the game, I thought they had a little bit too much play. But the three guys and how they interchange, can put you on your heels a little bit and that's kind of their niche - along with those two guys sitting in the hole and obviously Andrew (Farrell) in the back cleaning everything up."
"The chances were about even, shots were even, corner kicks were even. They probably had some more possession than us, but all told, to me the game was the play at the end of the game. I like the way their scheme is and the way they attack. That's why we had to be a little more tactical than usual."
