I could see in the players' eyes they were ready to go and focused for this game. I expected this to be a close game. We haven't gone up against a team that mirrored us as much as Stratford.
Claire really sparked us off the bench. The freshman showed a lot of determination and strength in there and played a well-rounded game. I don't know if we missed a shot is the fourth quarter.
Jessica showed tremendous leadership tonight. Taylor has missed some time, but she has come on and gave us a big spark tonight.
From what I have heard, they will be a lot like Marathon. They will get up in your face on defense and have some good shooters, so we'll have to be prepared to play our best.
Manawa played a real tough game. But we stayed strong and came out strong in the fourth quarter and never looked back.
Defense won the game for us. We had an incredible amount of intensity on defense against a good team. This was a huge win for us.
We knew that we just needed to execute a little better, and things would start to happen for us. Things got tight for us at the end, but we made the big play when we needed it.
It's been very hectic. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I probably had my phone ring 20 times today, and on the last one I just didn't answer it.
This is such an incredible experience for these girls because now they get a taste. Hopefully, this will make them want to work that much harder to get back down here.
Kate's a lot better shooter than that, and if we all hit a couple more it's a lot different game. Their girl kept hitting her shots, and it's hard to defend two big and athletic post players when you also have someone shooting from the outside.
