Mike Lordemann Quotations

As a coach, I've been very blessed. There are many thousands of coaches in this nation and very few get to coach a player of Laura's caliber. But it's not just her talent as a soccer player. Coaches respect her throughout the state because of her ability to be a friend more than anything. That means more to me as a coach. What she does on a soccer field is only part of the award. She's a talented player, but as a person, she's even better.

Our seniors have won two state championships and been to a final four. They know what it's like to win, they know how to win, (and) when they step on the field they expect to win. For them to have that experience and pass it on to our younger kids is invaluable.

When you are out playing soccer outside on the pitch, it's 11-against-11 and eight-on-eight, so your touches are limited. Here it is 5-on-5, so you are obviously going to get more touches on the ball. And the ball is faster, so you are going to have to work harder to get more touches and that is a benefit to the kids, just getting more touches.

She's the best one-on-one defender in our program and she gets no credit for what she does.

We defend with 11 and attack with 11.

The funny thing is we had just talked about it five minutes before that she needed to let that shot go. She responded well.

Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined we could put six on the board against them. And on the other side of it, to shut them out is even better. We played well defensively and didn't give them many quality looks. We were concerned about their forwards and really had to shut those two out. We did that.

Coming into the year, I honestly thought that if Alison could give us five, maybe 10 minutes in a match, we would be getting a lot out of her. For us to get 80 quality minutes out of her a night has been a blessing and a surprise.