John Desko Quotations

We were hurting. We were questioning ourselves. We were worried about the season.

I am very disappointed in our play. We had opportunities offensively, and we didn't produce.

I think there was some panic. With very little time left, we didn't have any timeouts, and we just called a play that we had been running. Pat, all in all, did a good job just to get the shot off.

My position would be that I couldn't comment about anything until speaking with the chancellor and the athletic director. I'm assuming there would be no position until the situation is resolved.

It did in the initial adjustment, but after a week, you get adjusted to it. Since then, it's been great.

I thought he saw the ball very well today. I thought they had a number of opportunities early, where they had some good shots, and Pete came up big for us. To keep them to two goals at halftime was really good for our defensive confidence.

We need to work on everything. We didn't expect to be in midseason form (Sunday). The offense had a lot of turnovers. I think the defense started out pretty good. We need to maintain our focus and discipline.

We know Joe's a competitor and he can be intense. I'm sure he'll be a great fit for West Point.

We shouldn't be making the same mistakes. We've seen them on film and worked on them in practice; we've got to do a much better job with that.

We just haven't been able to put 60 minutes of ball together. Our defense did a good job for most of the first half and we couldn't put our points up offensively.

It was another injury that forced us to adjust. When you give a team like the Blue Jays that many opportunities at the offensive end, that's putting too much pressure on your defense.

Offensively we were more patient. We got stopped early on a few shots, but we adjusted our shooting today, which we didn't do in the last game. Defensively, communication was very good. Even with only two days to prepare, our defense did a good job of recognizing some of their plays and getting there before they did or getting there before the ball did.

It means a lot, wins like this against quality teams at this time of year does a lot for your confidence. And to be in a game like this and win it, hopefully we can build on that, and if we find ourselves in a similar situation, we can draw on that experience today.

It's hard to stay calm in a game like this. Basically a one-goal game going back and forth in both directions. It's great to come out on top.

It looked like we were struggling to clear the ball. We've used the same clear pretty much the whole year and all of the sudden we're not making our looks or our reads.

(The new position) is going to help in many ways. The team benefits with someone who has had so many years in administration and coaching. The coaching staff can become more organized.

We knew they were going to be coming at us. I think they got their first two goals by getting underneath us in the crease. The first two goals really picked them up. Dom (Lamolinara) just stood on his head when we needed him with that doorstop save and the last pass with four seconds left. Defensively we're just jelling and we've just got to keep moving.

I think we came out and got the first goals fairly easily and fairly quickly. All of a sudden they started to change the defense and they changed things up on us and I thought we got a little too comfortable. I give their goalie credit, he made some very good saves, but we just wanted to score. We changed some things halfway through the fourth quarter and we were able to generate some shots. I think for most of the year we've been good on offense. We haven't really struggled like that. We knew coming into the season that we'd have to share the ball on offense and really be efficient.

We got the goals early in the game and I thought we just got a little too comfortable with things. They started changing their defense, they started going from a zone defense to a man-to-man and doing different things. We got sloppy, and I give them credit for the way they played. We got sloppy and had some turnovers there. We did have some opportunities, one-on-one with the goalie in the second there, but we need to finish things. They found some momentum in their defense and were able to crawl back in.

I think this is our ninth one-goal game this year. We lost three by one and this is our sixth win by one. Unfortunately, the guys are used to being in these kinds of situations and made some pretty good adjustments down the stretch to win the game. I thought our defense played great all game long. While we didn't have it at one half, we picked it up on the other side of the field. I'm proud of the guys. Any win this time of year is a great win.

First, my congratulations to Yale on their success this year. The more film we watched, the more we realized what a good lacrosse team they were. They don't have any weaknesses. We told the guys all week long, we're going to have to roll up our sleeves and work hard to get this one. Congrats to them for their season.

We can't be satisfied as a team. We have one goal in mind right now and it's the next game. We want to get to the championship. We have to come out in practice and get after each other. There can't be any letdowns, we have to keep going.