Joel Sullivan Quotations

We started out sluggish, but they responded well and picked up the pressure and forced some turnovers.

We made our free throws late in the game and that was big.

Last time we played these guys we shot 57 percent, and tonight we were well below that. That's to Fort Dodge's credit. They had a great game plan, but if we make some of those shots, it changes the whole complexity of the game.

Our goal coming over here was to just try and win. We didn't want to look past the game and look ahead to Dowling and let this one jump up and catch us. We could've been better in areas but we did what we had to do in the fourth quarter to win the game.

Natalie has done what I thought she'd be able to do; she's just done it better than I thought she'd be able to. She likes to compete and she's really done a nice job stepping into that starting spot. Hopefully she'll be able to continue to do that.

Johnston is a very good ball team, they are well-coached and have depth. We weren't sharp for most of the game, so we were lucky to stay as close as we did.

We started to put a lot of pressure on them defensively, which turned into offensive opportunities late.

They knew what we were going to do; we knew what they were going to do, and they just did their stuff a little bit better. We missed an awful lot of shots, but that's got nothing to do with X's and O's. We just missed a lot of shots we've been making.

It was a slower game offensively for both teams, but we kept falling further behind. We had some girls step up late in the game, and fortunately it wasn't too late.

I told the kids in the locker room that no one person won this game for us; it was a great team effort. We knew that's what it would take to beat a team like Valley. It would have to be a team win, and that's what it was.

I told the kids that this is our conference championship.

The kids really stepped up to the plate and played extremely well on both sides of the floor. We switched to a half-court defense, and that slowed down Johnston and allowed us to get some transition points.

Ames-Valley is a great rivalry, so we know it's one game where we never have to worry about focus with the kids. The kids had great focus and executed the game plan, and we were able to take away a victory.